The military chiefs were reasonable, and the Christian population totally unprepared and averse to hostilities, but the plan at Constantinople was, as we soon found, to provoke an insurrection in order to justify a transfer of the island to Egypt. Later we had from Constantinople all the details, but for the moment we could only conjecture the Egyptian collusion in the plan by the presence of Schahin Pasha, the general-in-chief of the Egyptian army, and minister of war of the viceroy, and the very important part taken by him in the ensuing negotiations. He came in great state and pomp, and immediately assumed the lead in the negotiations with the islanders, which were carried on in secret and through Derché. Ismael Pasha, who was probably not in the Egyptian secret, had another plan of his own, equally secret, and the two conflicted. Ismael, as we later learned, intended to raise and subdue an insurrection, which he hoped to do easily, and then, on the strength of his Greek blood and the protection he had at Stamboul, to be named the Prince of Crete. The Egyptian plan was, on the contrary, conciliatory, and depended mainly on direct bribery and the promise of concessions to the Cretans. It had been, as I learned from Constantinople, concocted between the Turkish government, the Marquis de Moustier, the French ambassador, and the viceroy, and proposed to coax or hire the Cretans to ask for the Egyptian protection, when, on the application of the plebiscite, the island was to be transferred to the viceroy on the payment of £400,000 down and a tribute of £80,000. The French diplomatic agent in Egypt had arranged the details in consultation with Derché, but none would fit. Derché thought that all the Cretan chiefs could be bought, and the Egyptian pasha began by distributing £16,000 amongst the churches, mosques, and schools, without forgetting handsome baksheesh to the leading chiefs, who accepted the money, but promised nothing, and made no responsive move. Ismael, meanwhile, was doing his best to provoke hostilities, and finally succeeded in getting up a collision between Cretan Christians and Mussulmans at Candanos, in the southwestern part of the island.