THE CAVE MISSION. 135 he said with almost brutal frankness, " Under these circumstances, I think you would have done better not to have come at all." Instructions were sent privately to the Egyptian ministers to give no information to the British envoy. The Khedive professed absolute ignorance about the finances of Egypt, and referred all inquiries to the Mufettish.

Whenever the papers entrusted to Lord Rowton's care are made public property, I presume the truth will be made known. But I am justified in assuming that there was some motive for the sudden resolution of her Majesty's Government to send out a special mission to Egypt in order to investigate the financial position of Egypt, other than a desire to obtain accurate information on a matter which was not apparently any concern of England. Having been in Cairo at the time of the Cave Mission, I can vouch for the prevalence of an impression in Egypt that the mission was sent out with the view of bringing about an arrangement under which England, on condition of her assuming the financial liabilities of the Khedivial Government, should take upon herself the Protectorate of Egypt. I have reason to believe that when the mission arrived, Ismail Pasha and his entourage imagined it would result in some arrangement of the kind I have indicated. Mr. Cave was then Judge Advocate-General, and therefore not a member of the Cabinet, but only a subordinate member of the Ministry. The distinctions, however, of ministerial rank in England were, and are, very imperfectly understood abroad ; and the bare fact that