apprehension, that I by impetuosity and tenacity should endeavour
to overbear him. But pray consider whether you could do it. He
would not have the same fear of your dealings with him. I do not
think you could get a _reversal_, but perhaps he would give you
another short delay, and at the end of this the sky might be
further settled.

Two days later Mr. Gladstone and Bright had a long, and we may be sure
that it was an earnest, conversation. The former of them the same day put
his remarks into the shape of a letter, which the reader may care to have,
as a statement of the case for the first act of armed intervention, which
led up by a direct line to the English occupation of Egypt, Soudan wars,
and to some other events from which the veil is not even yet lifted:--

The act of Tuesday [the bombardment of Alexandria] was a solemn
and painful one, for which I feel myself to be highly responsible,
and it is my earnest desire that we should all view it now, as we
shall wish at the last that we had viewed it. Subject to this
testing rule, I address you as one whom I suppose not to believe
all use whatever of military force to be unlawful; as one who
detests war in general and believes most wars to have been sad
errors (in which I greatly agree with you), but who in regard to
any particular use of force would look upon it for a justifying
cause, and after it would endeavour to appreciate its actual
effect.

The general situation in Egypt had latterly become one in which
everything was governed by sheer military violence. Every
legitimate authority--the Khedive, the Sultan, the notables, and
the best men of the country, such as Cherif and Sultan pashas--had
been put down, and a situation, of _force_ had been created, which
could only be met by force. This being so, we had laboured to the
uttermost, almost alone but not without success, to secure that if
force were employed against the violence of Arabi, it should be
force armed with the highest sanction of law; that it should be
the force of the sovereign, authorised and restrained by the
united Powers of Europe, who in such a case represent the
civilised world.

While this is going on, a by-question arises. The British fleet,
lawfully present in the waters of Alexandria, had the right and
duty of self-defence. It demanded the discontinuance of