What ought to have been said was what neither Lord Salisbury nor Sir Stafford Northcote dared say. It was that England, after Tel-el-Kebir, should have boldly proclaimed a Protectorate over Egypt, the moral authority of which would have sufficed to hold her fretful and mutinous provinces in awe, till steps for their reconstruction could be taken.[190] Failure seemingly rendered the Opposition reckless. Even the heroic and high-hearted envoy of the Government at Khartoum did not escape the shafts of their malice. He had proclaimed the Mahdi as Sultan of Kordofan in order to induce him to negotiate for the peaceful withdrawal of the garrisons. He had burned in public the archives of the Egyptian Government, in which the arrears of taxes were recorded, as a pledge that the oppressed people of Khartoum should be no longer the prey of corrupt extortioners. He had set free the prisoners who were unjustly pining in the gaols. He had proclaimed that the right of property in domestic slaves would be recognised--thereby neutralising the intrigues of the Mahdists, who were persuading the wavering people that if they remained true to Egypt, the Government would rob them of their household servants. Finding it impossible to discover a less objectionable native chief fit to undertake the task of keeping order at Khartoum, Gordon recommended for that purpose his old enemy, Zebehr Pasha, once known as “King of the Slave-Traders.” The Tories now attacked Gordon and his policy with much bitterness. They jeered at him as a madman. They denounced him for sanctioning slavery--he who had given the best days of his life to the suppression of the trade. They tried to rouse public opinion against the Government for tolerating his proceedings. In fact, no effort was wanting to embarrass him and the Ministry in solving the difficult problem of extricating the military and civil population of Khartoum from their dangerous position. The factiousness of the Opposition had one bad result. It frightened the Government into refusing their sanction to Gordon’s proposal for handing over Khartoum to Zebehr Pasha. For at this time the Tories delighted to describe Zebehr as the kind of monster of savagery, with whom a statesman of Mr. Gladstone’s character naturally sought a close alliance.