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Empire. It is well to recall what that position was in the early days of the Occupation. The presence of a British force in Egypt was viewed with disfavour, if not with actual hostility, by most of the Powers of Europe. Continental opinion openly derided the sincerity of the motives which were, the justification of our intervention in the internal affairs of that country, and which led us to persist in that intervention when France, at first our partner in the business, drew back and refused to go further. In a word, Europe was jealous of the predominant position which we were acquiring in the Valley of the Nile, and was bent on opposing, sometimes openly, sometimes secretly, the work which England had undertaken. Nor would it have been easy to find a more convenient field for the exercise of that opposition than was offered by the existing state of affairs in Egypt. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy, with a mutinous army, a poverty-stricken population, and a helpless Government; it was threatened by a fanatical uprising of its distant provinces; it was so bound hand and foot by international fetters that it could not move without the assent of the Powers of Europe—if ever a task was surrounded with what seemed insuperable difficulties, it was that upon which we embarked on the day when the British soldier set foot on Egyptian soil. In addition to the hostility displayed by the Powers towards our Occupation, public opinion in England, both official and non-official, viewed the undertaking with indifference, if not with actual antipathy. There was a general feeling that we were assuming responsibilities with little present profit and much prospective risk, and even the ardent Jingo of those days shook his head dubiously over the new departure. It was neither the wisdom of the statesman nor the passion of the multitude that led us into our Egyptian venture, but sheer force of circumstances. On no occasion has the nation been more unwilling to go whither its destiny called.