LETTER OF THE GRAND VIZIER TO HIS HIGHNESS MOHAMMED SAID PACHA, VICEROY OF EGYPT 95 LETTER to Comte de Lesseps ...... ... ΙΟΙ 22nd. MEMORANDUM FOR THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH 245 LETTER TO M. de Thouvenel 8th. PAGE 241 243 THE SUEZ CANAL. I. To M. S. W. RUYSSENAERS, CONSUL-General for HOLLAND IN EGYPT. PARIS, July 8, 1852. THREE years ago, after my mission to Rome as Envoy Extraordinary, I asked for and obtained leave from my office as Minister Plenipotentiary. Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind when we first became friends in Egypt twenty years ago. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that so long as I alone believe it to be possible, it is virtually impossible. To make the public take it up it requires a support still wanting to it, and I ask for your assistance with a view to obtaining that support. The scheme in question is the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. This has been thought of from the earliest historical times, and for that very reason is looked upon as impracticable. Geographical dictionaries inform us indeed that the project would have been executed long ago but for insurmountable obstacles. I enclose a minute, the result of my former and more recent studies, which I have had translated into Arabic by my friend Duchenoud, the best interpreter to the Govern ment. It is strictly confidential, and you must judge whether the present Viceroy, Abbas Pacha, is likely to recognise its importance for Egypt and to aid in its execution. II. TO THE SAME. PARIS, November 15, 1852. WHEN you wrote to me that there was no chance of getting Abbas Pacha to entertain the idea of the Suez Canal, I communicated my project to my friend M. Benoit Fould, the financier, who was about to take part in the formation of a Crédit Mobilier at Constantinople. He was struck with the grandeur of the scheme and with the advantage of including the privilege of making the Suez Canal amongst the concessions to be demanded of Turkey. The agent sent to Constantinople met with such difficulties as led to the abandonment of the project. One argument brought to bear against it was the impossibility of taking the initiative in a work to be executed in Egypt, where the Viceroy alone has a right to undertake it. Under these circumstances I shall lay aside my minute on the Canal until a more convenient season, and оссиру myself meanwhile with agriculture and in building a model farm on a property recently acquired by my mother-in-law, Madame Delamalle. III. TO THE SAME. LA CHENAIE, September 15, 1854. I WAS busy amongst bricklayers and carpenters, superintending the addition of a storey to Agnes Sorel's old manor house, when the postman, bringing the Paris mail, appeared in the courtyard. My letters and papers were handed up to me by the workmen, and my surprise was great on reading of the death of Abbas Pacha and the accession to power of the friend of our youth, the intelligent and warm-hearted Mohammed Said. I hurried down from the scaffolding, and at once wrote to congratulate the new |