130 Egypt
this no one was prepared to face. Arabi clearly could not
legally be condemned as a rebel for continuing resistance
to a foreign invasion when resistance had been begun
with the support of his sovereign ruler and of the Sultan's
representative ; while revelations of what had really hap-
pened would have been most unwelcome to the new
regime. Prompt liquidation of the situation was advis-
able, and that past-master in diplomacy, Lord Duflferin,
was for that purpose hurriedly despatched from Con-
stantinople to Cairo. He compromised the Arabi prosecu-
tion by arranging for a conviction and for a death sentence
that had been commuted in advance to exile in Ceylon.
Special Commissions and Courts Martial thereafter im-
prisoned a good many Nationalists, executed a few, and
were then abolished (October, 1883). Within a few
months the nationalist movement might never have
existed, and Egypt had accepted British administration,
It is the fate of public movements to be gauged by the
personality of their most prominent leader. Arabi was a
personification of the fellaheen, the worthiest and also
the weakest factor in the nationalist movement. It was
not Egypt but Europe that had forced him into a position
for which he was quite unfitted, He, good easy man,,
had ventured far beyond his depth, and when he fell he
fell like Lucifer. But no one can follow his career or read
his commentary on the course of events without believing
that in overthrowing him we lost the first and best oppor-
tunity of bringing Egyptian national sovereignty into
permanent and peaceful alliance with British naval
supremacy*