I read the draft of the letter over to General Gordon. He expressed to me his entire concurrence in the instructions. The only suggestion he made was in connection with the passage in which, speaking of the policy of abandoning the Soudan, I had said, "I understand also that you entirely concur in the desirability of adopting this policy." General Gordon wished that I should add the words, "and that you think it should on no account be changed." These words were accordingly added. III. =Source.=--Lord Cromer's _Modern Egypt_, vol. i., p. 428. (Macmillans.) Looking back at what occurred after a space of many years, two points are to my mind clear. The first is that no Englishman should have been sent to Khartoum. The second is that, if anyone had to be sent, General Gordon was not the right man to send. The reasons why no Englishman should have been sent are now sufficiently obvious. If he were beleaguered at Khartoum, the British Government might be obliged to send an expedition to relieve him. The main object of British policy was to avoid being drawn into military operations in the Soudan. The employment of a British official at Khartoum involved a serious risk that it would be no longer possible to adhere to this policy, and the risk was materially increased when the individual chosen to go to the Soudan was one who had attracted to himself a greater degree of popular sympathy than almost any Englishman of modern times. DIFFICULTIES OF GORDON'S CHARACTER (1884). I. =Source.=--Lord Cromer's _Modern Egypt_, vol. i., p. 432. (Macmillans.)