all ranks and arms. In these remarks which Mr. Gladstone submits
with his humble devotion, he has taken it for granted that
Khartoum has fallen through the exhaustion of its means of
defence. But your Majesty may observe from the telegram that this
is uncertain. Both the correspondent's account and that of Major
Wortley refer to the delivery of the town by treachery, a
contingency which on some previous occasions General Gordon has
treated as far from improbable; and which, if the notice existed,
was likely to operate quite independently of the particular time
at which a relieving force might arrive. The presence of the enemy
in force would naturally suggest the occasion, or perhaps even the
apprehension of the approach of the British army. In pointing to
these considerations, Mr. Gladstone is far from assuming that they
are conclusive upon the whole case; in dealing with which the
government has hardly ever at any of its stages been furnished
sufficiently with those means of judgment which rational men
usually require. It may be that, on a retrospect, many errors will
appear to have been committed. There are many reproaches, from the
most opposite quarters, to which it might be difficult to supply a
conclusive answer. Among them, and perhaps among the most
difficult, as far as Mr. Gladstone can judge, would be the
reproach of those who might argue that our proper business was the
protection of Egypt, that it never was in military danger from the
Mahdi, and that the most prudent course would have been to provide
it with adequate frontier defences, and to assume no
responsibility for the lands beyond the desert.

One word more. Writing to one of his former colleagues long after Mr.
Gladstone says:--

_Jan. 10, '90._--In the Gordon case we all, and I rather
prominently, must continue to suffer in silence. Gordon was a
hero, and a hero of heroes; but we ought to have known that a hero
of heroes is not the proper person to give effect at a distant
point, and in most difficult circumstances, to the views of
ordinary men. It was unfortunate that he should claim the hero's
privilege by turning upside down and inside out every idea and
intention with which he had left England, and for which he had
obtained our approval. Had my views about Zobeir prevailed, it
would not have remove