ABSTRACT
This telegram is impregnated with the very personality of the Khedive. The most charming of men, he cast his spell over Gordon and based his appeal to him upon an argument which was unanswerable. He addressed himself to a gentleman’s sense of honour. And in doing so Ismail gave indisputable proof of the sincerity of his campaign
against the slave trade. Had his devotion to the cause of slavery “ Regulation ” weakened in the very slightest, he had in Gordon’s retirement an ideal opportunity to rid himself of an embarassing idealist. He knew in January, 1877, where his officer stood, and that he could be depended upon to wage a persistent, relentless, and sane warfare on slave razzias. He understood perfectly the objective envisaged by the soldier whom he trusted. It was because he was willing to adhere to the campaign destined, by the operation of economic laws, eventually to stamp out domestic slavery, that he insisted that Gordon should return to the Sudan.
