We have been officially informed of the decision of H.M.'s Government on our memorial to Lord Salisbury, but for which we were prepared by yourself and Sir William Gregory; and also by Lord de la Warr, who very kindly sent to me copies of the papers (Egypt, No. 1, 1891), printed for both Houses of Parliament, in March last, and of his speeches and Lord Salisbury's reply in May and June last. I now send copies as requested of the medical certificates had by Toulba Pasha and the late Abdulal Pasha since the memorial, also the Colonial Secretary's letter to us and my reply. [All these were enclosed with this letter.] You will permit me to ask your notice of Riaz Pasha's Memorandum of July 9, 1890, to the Foreign Office concluding with: "H.M's Government should in any case remember that the exiles were pardoned and allowances granted to them on the express {222} condition that they should remain at some distant spot, such as the island of Ceylon." On this rather qualified assertion it would quite do to refer to Mr. Broadley's book _How we Defended Arabi and his Friends_, where the terms of the arrangement which put an end to the proceedings in connection with our "trial" will be found. Mr. Broadley and Mr. Napier could not, as I cannot, in honour reveal more than they have done, but my steadfast friend, Mr. Blunt, was not so constrained to be reticent, and his communications to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ showed what even the great noble-minded General Gordon believed the nature and extent of our exile to be. We should not perhaps however complain of our not being permitted to end our days in the land of our birth, although what harm that, or our being in Cyprus, could now do I cannot conceive. That none of us have desired or sought in the least to be disloyal to our parole the testimony of Sir Arthur Gordon to our conduct should be sufficient. If all my correspondence, family and other, for the last nine years were read, or any of the hundreds of my visitors, from every part of the world, were questioned, nothing would there be to show the least wish to disturb or stay the progress of my loved native land since my poor efforts failed.