this idea, that we could shake off our virtual responsibility for the policy of Egypt in the Soudan by a formal disclaimer." On November 5, the Egyptian force was cut to pieces near Shekan, about two days' journey from El Obeid, by the Mahdi at the head of forty thousand men, and Hicks and his staff died fighting at hopeless odds. On the advice of Sir Evelyn Baring, who had just arrived in Egypt from India, where he had filled the post of Financial Minister to Lord Ripon's Government, the English Cabinet recognised at last their responsibility. It was decided that the Soudan must be abandoned and that the Mahdi must be induced to allow the Egyptian garrisons, amounting to about forty thousand men, still remaining there, to retire. Mr. Labouchere wrote to Mr. Chamberlain as follows on December 15, 1883: "I hope that we are not going to undertake the reconquest of the Soudan. The difficult position in which we are comes from not having broken entirely with the Conservative policy in Egypt. _They_ might have annexed the country: we cannot, so we give advice which is not taken, try to tinker up an impossible financial situation, and make ourselves responsible for every folly committed by a gang of corrupt and silly Pashas. The result is that we are now told that we have a new frontier somewhere in the direction of the Equator, and that our honour is concerned, etc., etc. If the French are so foolish as to wish to acquire influence in the Soudan, I cannot conceive why we should seek to acquire it in order to prevent them. I believe that the Khedive and his friends are {211} delighted at what has occurred, because they hope that our evacuation will be put off; so long as we retain one soldier there, or indeed assume the part of bailiffs for the locusts who make money out of the country, something will always occur to force us to remain." Mr. Chamberlain replied on December 18: "I do not think there is the slightest intention of engaging in any operations in the Soudan. The utmost we are likely to do is to undertake the defence of Egypt proper, and I hope there is no fear of that being attacked. I wish we could get out of the whole business, but I have always thought that, at the time we interfered, we really had no possible alternative. I am not Christian enough to turn the other cheek after one has been slapped, and we had unfortunately put ourselves in a position in which the first slap had already been administered. It is, however, a warning and a lesson to look a little more closely into the beginnings of things."