In an article in the Fortnightly Review for the month of October,[46] under the heading of “The Future of the Soudan,” grave charges are made against General Gordon.

It is alleged in that article that General Gordon’s proclamation at Khartoum, of the 18th or 19th of February last, will have a very injurious effect upon the condition of thousands of unhappy negroes from the upper regions of the Nile, who are, or will become, slaves. That General Gordon has undone by his own hands the work he devoted years of his life to accomplish. That his proclamation to the slaveholders showed that he was inclined to temporize with an injustice, and that the English Government have confirmed the right of man to sell man. It is further asserted that the issue of the proclamation secured General Gordon’s safe arrival at Khartoum.

The writer advocates the total abolition of slavery in Egypt at once, without any compensation. He is of opinion that General Gordon should not have accepted a commission from the Khedive. He thinks that if an equitable administration, under the British Government, cannot be established, it would be better to abandon the Soudan absolutely, and leave the native chiefs to themselves, even at the risk of there being a period of anarchy; but further on he says there is no reason why we should allow the Soudan to sink into barbarism. And then he goes on to assume that some form of government might be established, separate from Egypt, and that the railway from Suakim to Berber ought to be made, if we wish to keep open the road to Khartoum, and our access to the heart of Africa. The writer considers that the garrisons of Kassala and Sennaar should have been relieved through Abyssinia, and that General Gordon was most unwisely empowered to settle the nomination of the future native administration of the country, in place of frankly withdrawing from the Soudan, and leaving the tribes to settle their government among themselves. The writer then makes a direct charge against General Gordon to the effect that he, in a proclamation of February 26, said he had been compelled to send for British troops, who were then on the road, and would arrive in a few days. In conclusion, the writer of the article states that the despatch of the present expedition is a sufficient proof that General Gordon overrated his powers.

Now what are the facts?

According to the terms of the Convention[47] between the British and Egyptian Governments for the suppression of the slave trade, dated August 4, 1877, it was agreed that slave-hunting should cease, and that any persons engaged therein should be treated as murderers, and it was further arranged that after certain dates—viz., August 4, 1884, in lower Egypt, and August 4, 1889, in the Soudan, all trafficking in slaves between family and family, should be illegal, and be punished with imprisonment. It was further resolved that a special ordinance should be published throughout the land of Egypt, in order to prepare the people for the change determined upon.

General Gordon, during the time that he was Governor-General of the Soudan, rigidly adhered to this Convention, and annually published a proclamation to the effect that the sale of slaves between family and family would determine in 1889. In Lower Egypt, where, by the terms of the Convention, the sale of slaves has already become illegal, no such proclamations have been promulgated, nor have any steps whatever been taken to put the terms of the Convention into force. Although General Gordon faithfully carried out the provisions of this article of the Convention, he was adverse to the conditions. He saw that they could not be carried out; and suggested that the only effectual way of abolishing slavery would be the following:—

1. The registration of all existing slaves.
2. Registers to be kept in each Government office of the names of slaves and their owners, with a description of each.
3. Every slave not registered within six months from a certain date to be free.
4. All slaves born after a certain date to be free.

And he suggested that the Convention should be cancelled, and that the foregoing proposals should take its place.

Prior to General Gordon’s arrival in the Soudan in February last, it was rumored throughout that country by the emissaries of the Mahdi, that General Gordon would proclaim the freedom of all slaves, which form seven-eighths of the population of that province. In order to counteract this baneful influence, General Gordon, on his arrival at Khartoum, issued the proclamation[48] complained of. What are its terms? It simply tells the people what they are by law entitled to—viz., “That whoever has slaves shall have full right to their services, and full control over them, and that no one shall interfere with their property.” General Gordon had no power to cancel the Convention and abolish slavery. What he did was in accordance with a solemn convention entered into by the Governments of Great Britain and Egypt, and in no way referred to the making of new slaves, and still less to slave-hunting, against which nefarious traffic, as is well known, all his energies have been exercised.

It is not the case that the issue of the proclamation procured the safe arrival of General Gordon at Khartoum. The proclamation was not issued until after his arrival at Berber—most probably not until after his arrival at Khartoum itself.

With regard to the total abolition of slavery, without compensation, at once—the writer can hardly have considered the question. For a powerful nation like Great Britain to confiscate the personal property of a people, with whom slavery dates from the time of the Pharaohs, would be as impolitic as it would be unjust. We have no right, human or divine, to so deal with property that is not our own. We did not dare to act in this manner when we gave our slaves their freedom, we began by proposing a loan of £15,000,000, and we ended by a gift of £20,000,000.

With respect to General Gordon’s commission as Governor-General which is objected to—how could he have derived any power without it? The number of Egyptian employÉs and troops could be counted by thousands, each province being under the government of an Egyptian Pasha. How could he have issued any orders unless he derived his authority from the firman of the Khedive.

The writer advocates the evacuation of the Soudan upon any terms, even if such withdrawal would result in anarchy—always provided that Great Britain is not prepared to exercise a protectorate over it—and then he goes on to recommend the construction of the Suakim and Berber railway under any circumstances, with the view of opening the road to Khartoum, and giving us access to the heart of Africa. He seems to consider that the people of the Soudan would, after a time of anarchy, form good governments. It is asserted, on the contrary, that the country, at present a productive one, would revert into barbarism, and, after a scene of murder, rapine, and plunder, would become the resort of slave-hunters,[49] who would carry on raids into all the surrounding provinces.

The writer does not say where the money is to come from for the construction of the railway, or how it is to be maintained. When he speaks of the garrisons of Sennaar and Kassala being withdrawn through Abyssinia, he apparently forgets the extreme hatred that exists between the natives of the Soudan and the Abyssinians. He seems to have forgotten the thousands of people whom General Gordon was sent to remove. Putting on one side the Egyptian garrisons in the Bahr-el-Gazelle, and at the equator, and other places, Colonel Coetlogen states[50] that the people to be removed from Khartoum and Sennaar alone consists of from 40,000 to 50,000 persons, and is of opinion that the evacuation would take two years to carry out, and could only be carried out at great risk, and with much bloodshed.

It is very difficult to explain the meaning of the proclamation of February 26,[51] wherein General Gordon speaks of having sent for British troops who would in a few days be in Khartoum. It would seem as if the proclamation had been promulgated under some misapprehension or misunderstanding open to explanation. General Gordon is not an Arabic scholar, and his interpreter may have inserted words that he did not use. Again, General Gordon may have intended to allude to Graham’s force proceeding to Suakim,[52] since the proclamation is addressed to the inhabitants of the Soudan generally, of which Suakim is an integral part; or he may refer to the 200 Indian troops that on the same day (February 26) he requests[53] may be sent to Wadi-Halfa.

As this incident has nothing to do with the future of the Soudan, nor with the slave proclamation, it would seem quite unnecessary for the writer of the article in the Fortnightly Review to go out of his way to charge General Gordon, an absent officer, with having proclaimed an untruth.

As to the statement that “the dispatch of the present expedition is a sufficient proof that General Gordon overrates his powers,” it is not to be believed that the people of England will endorse any such unfair statement. On the contrary, they will be of opinion that General Gordon’s prestige has never stood so high as it does at this time. It has certainly carried him through the perils of a terrible ordeal out of which it seems probable that he and his companions will emerge with undiminished reputation. Few persons will ever know the fearful anxiety which he has undergone during this time of trial—not on account of himself, but on account of those who were with him, and for whose lives he considered himself responsible. General Gordon never asked for any expedition to Khartoum. After Graham’s victories, he requested that two squadrons of British cavalry should be sent to Berber, and 200 men to Wadi-Halfa. He himself remarked, he made these requests solely on account of the moral effect they would produce if acceded to.

It is difficult to know for what purpose the present expedition is sent, except it be to carry out the evacuation of this fertile country. It is to be hoped, however, in the interests of humanity, that the country may be retained under Egyptian rule, the more especially as Khartoum is as essential to Egypt as our frontier position at Quetta is to India. Under Egyptian rule it returned a surplus revenue of over £100,000.

The question of Zebehr requires no comment, and it is too long a subject to go into.

In conclusion, it may be observed that, while General Gordon would perhaps deprecate any notice being taken of the article referred to, yet in his absence his friends do not consider it should be allowed to pass unobserved.—Contemporary Review.