=Source.=--Lord Cromer's _Modern Egypt_, vol. i., p. 428.
(Macmillans.)
Looking back at what occurred after a space of many years, two
points are to my mind clear. The first is that no Englishman should
have been sent to Khartoum. The second is that, if anyone had to be
sent, General Gordon was not the right man to send. The reasons why
no Englishman should have been sent are now sufficiently obvious.
If he were beleaguered at Khartoum, the British Government might be
obliged to send an expedition to relieve him. The main object of
British policy was to avoid being drawn into military operations
in the Soudan. The employment of a British official at Khartoum
involved a serious risk that it would be no longer possible to
adhere to this policy, and the risk was materially increased when
the individual chosen to go to the Soudan was one who had attracted
to himself a greater degree of popular sympathy than almost any
Englishman of modern times.