'I Will Not Leave These People
After All They Have Gone Through.' [Major-General Gordon To Sir E. Baring,
Khartoum, July 30; Received At Cairo October 15.] He Tosses His Commission
Contemptuously From Him:
'I would also ask her Majesty's Government to
accept the resignation of my commission.' [Major-General Gordon to
Sir E.
Baring (telegraphic), Khartoum, March 9.] The Government 'trust that he
will not resign,' [Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, Foreign Office,
March 13.] and his offer remains in abeyance. Finally, in bitterness and
vexation, thinking himself abandoned and disavowed, he appeals to Sir
Evelyn Baring personally: 'I feel sure, whatever you may feel
diplomatically, I have your support - and that of every man professing
himself a gentleman - in private'; [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring
(telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] and as a last hope he begs
Sir Samuel Baker to appeal to 'British and American millionaires'
to subscribe two hundred thousand pounds to enable him to carry out the
evacuation without, and even in spite of, the Governments of Cairo and
London; and Sir Samuel Baker writes a long letter to the Times in
passionate protest and entreaty.
Such are the chief features in the wretched business. Even the Blue-books
in their dry recital arouse in the reader painful and indignant emotions.
But meanwhile other and still more stirring events were passing outside
the world of paper and ink.
The arrival of Gordon at Khartoum had seriously perplexed and alarmed
Mohammed Ahmed and his Khalifas.
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