3o8 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

in his opinion, be no penalty short of death. For the others, exile and confiscation might possibly have been deemed adequate punishment. After all, Tewfik was the son of Ismail, the grandson of Mahomet Ali.

jLf he had been allowed to punish the rebels after the iwont and usage of the East, he might have inspired a I respect and terror amongst his own subjects which would have restored his sorely damaged authority; 1 but if he was not allowed to punish, he was not fit to rule. Such, at any rate, was the verdict of his people ; and from that verdict, as might have been known to those who stepped in to protect Arabi and his fellowconspirators from the just reward of their crimes, there was no appeal.

Yet it would be unreasonable to ignore the considerations which led the representatives of the British Government in Egypt to come to an opposite conclusion. If, after the mutiny had been suppressed by British troops, the punishment of the rebels had been left in the hands of the native authorities, the British Government would have been held responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter, the disregard for the strict rules of evidence, the indifference to human suffering, the utter carelessness as to whether the innocent may not suffer with the guilty, which are wont to characterize all Oriental measures of suppression. In England, even more than in other European countries, there would have been an outburst of indignation, if Achmed the Egyptian and his followers had been handed over to the mercy of the Khedive and his