Gordon's early opinions justified. 177 to countenance some extension of the slave-trade than the most indignant protests were made from the other side of the house, and we were asked if we were going to support an envoy who proposed to re-establish the slave-trade. No sooner had the rumour of General Gordon's application to have Zebehf sent to him reached this country than similar opposition was made and there were similar notices of resistance. But although none of us are entitled to throw any doubt whatever on the measures which General Gordon thought fit to adopt, I am bound to say that there are some portions of his policy which, as at present advised, are not clear to us; and it is not clear to us that he has not departed in some respects from his original purpose. It is possible that General Gordon overrated at first to some extent the probabilities as to the success of his mission; he might have over-estimated his own strength in dealing with the objects to be achieved, not merely the removal of the garrisons, but the reconstitution of the government of the Soudan, and what he thought a necessary preliminary to the reconstitution of settled government in the Soudan, the crushing of the power of the Mahdi. It may be that he found that the execution of his original intentions, as I have described them, was perfectly impossible. But on the evidence before us we have had proof, to some extent, that the situation of the garrisons was not inaccurately estimated by General Gordon."

Lord Hartington went on to say that in the case of Tokar the Qfarrison, though it surrendered, was not massacred, and that it did not appear that that garrison would not have been allowed to depart even without the intervention of a British force. He also came to the conclusion that there had been no massacre at Shendy, and that the emigration of the officials and the army from Berber had been accomplished without loss of life. Up to the time at which he was speaking he contended there was nothing to showthat Gordon was wrong in believing that probably there would be no difficulty put in the way by the inhabitants of the country, o\ the Egyptian garrisons and people leaving the places which they then occupied. Subsequent information contained in later telegrams and despatches showed, as we have seen, either that Gordon's Vol. Ill -8