[Footnote: Hicks Pasha complained that directly Lord Dufferin had left Cairo for Constantinople, he ceased to received adequate support from the Egyptian Government (_Life of Dufferin_. vol. ii., p. 55).] The main point, however, and that of present importance, was our forcing upon the Egyptians the policy of evacuating the Soudan after Hicks's defeat. Fitzmaurice wrote: "The Soudan could not be held without the assistance of England, and it is not a British interest to hold the Soudan.... The cost of the Soudan is one of the causes which ruin the Egyptian Treasury." Edmond Fitzmaurice then went on to explain in his memorandum the reasons which had forced us to wait until January 4th before we had told the Egyptian Government as to withdrawal from the interior of the Soudan, including Khartoum--"that the Ministers must carry out the advice offered them, or forfeit their places." 'On January 9th we had been told from Khartoum that, if a retreat was ordered at once, it could be safely effected; and it was on the next day, the 10th, that we offered the services of Colonels Gordon and Sir Charles Wilson, which were declined. It was not till January 16th that we were able to induce the Egyptians, even under their new withdrawal Government, to ask for a British officer, and on the 18th Gordon was sent. Gordon, however--who had left us to go to Suakim, and for whom we had drawn up a route from Suakim to Berber, in case he should go forward, and negotiated with the tribes for his free passage, and of whom we had telegraphed to Baring, "He does not wish to go to Cairo"--went to Cairo, "at Baring's" suggestion. He did not even land at Alexandria, but he was stopped by Baring at Port Said when on his way to Suakim, Baring sending Sir Evelyn Wood to meet him. Baring had already given orders, through Nubar, to commence the evacuation. Gordon had telegraphed to us requesting us to send Zebehr Pasha to Cyprus--that is, arbitrarily to arrest him and deport him. Yet, when he reached Cairo, at his own wish he had had an interview with this very man, and shortly afterwards he telegraphed to us, asking leave to take him to Khartoum and to make him virtually Governor of the Soudan, which, indeed, would have been entirely outside our power; for Forster, supported by the Anti- Slavery Society and the Conservatives, would at once have upset us in the House of Commons and reversed the policy. Wolseley had already begun to press as early as the 23rd for the sending of an expedition via Suakim and Berber.