58 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

CHAPTER XVI.

ENGLAND ROUSED.

We left Khartoum invested, Gordon virtually a prisoner, the insurrection rapidly spreading, and Sir Evelyn Baring on his way to London. What was to be done'?

To this question the British public gave no uncertain answer.

A Blue-book had by this time been issued containing the despatches which had passed between Lord Granville, Sir Evelyn Baring, and General Gordon. The London dailies had reprinted the best part of these. Mr.

Power’s telegrams from Khartoum bad given the fullest information of all that had been going on in that town. The correspondents at Cairo and Suakim had sent graphic accounts of the feeling which existed at these ports. The public, therefore, were well competent to express a correct opinion on the present state of affairs and the best course to be pursued. And the opinions the public n tw began to express were strong in the extreme.

If the English people take some time to form an opinion, they are not backward in forcibly expressing it when formed ; but rarely has it been expressed with such stinging force as it was on the present occasion. Sir Samuel Baker wrote numerous vigorous and incisive letters to the Times, denouncing the Government, mapping out an Egyptian policy, and proposing elaborate schemes for the conveyance of a flying column to Khartoum. A subscription list was opened at the Times office for the rescue of the beleagured garrison and its heroic leader. One lady offered £10,000 towards the equipment of a force, and hundreds volunteered their services. Political speeches delivered throughout the country inflamed the minds of the people. The Government was taken to task in phrases to which English ears had long been strangers. Gordon was declared to have been “ cruelly abandoned. ” The nation was said to have “forfeited its prestige.” The policy of the Gladstone ministry was characterized as a “ career of madness.” “I never remember,” said Lord Salisbury, leader of the Conservative party, at a din¬ ner of the London and Westminster Working Men’s Constitutional Associa¬ tion, “ I never remember a case where the conduct of the Government in Egypt generally with respect to those garrisons and with respect to this unhappy and splendid hero General Gordon (cheers) has excited a deeper and unanimous feeling in the country—a feeling of condemnation which is intense.

Men are horrified that a man who has been guided by such high motives as