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CHAPTER Xl The Suez Canal.
Stokes' report was accepted as the Tonnage Law of Turkey.
The successful outcome of the Commission met with the approval of the British Government. The
Commission wound up with lots of banquets etc and he then goes
to Egypt. His desire to visit the Pyramids,
was thwarted, but he visited Karl Haag's studio.
He visits Ismailia, where he stays with de Lesseps.
Stokes has a conversation with Ferdinand de Lesseps about Lord Palmerston
A headache makes for an unpleasant journey back
to Cairo on the train. He finally gets to visit the Pyramids though he cannot climb them due to an injury. He leaves Egypt and visits Naples and Pompei, then
drops by Ancient Rome, then Florence and on to Venice to meet his brother Frank who had returned from Australia after 19 years. After his return to
London, he consults with the new Foreign Secretary Lord Derby to whom he recommends use of
military action against the Suez Canal
Company, which is duly taken. Later, he is
recommending protection of the company from British shipowners.
Lord Derby offers a knighthood, which he declines.
He sends his son Arthur out to Ceylon to become
a coffee planter, going for a quick trip to Scotland
to sort out the details.
Back in London, he meets Captain Eads, who is
in the process of opening the mouth of the Mississippi to navigation with
advice from Sir Charles Hartley.
At the end of the chapter, he meets Colonel Peter Egerton Warburton, an Australian explorer.
Some of the people met by Stokes and recorded in this chapter include:-
Marquis D'Aste: formerly member of Danube Commission(Ch 11); At this time I received an intimation
from the Government that they wished me to become a member of
the International Commission which was to be assembled at Constantinople,
for the purpose of solving the difficulty that had arisen with the Suez
Canal Company in reference to the tonnage on which their dues ought to
be collected on vessels passing through the Canal. The Suez Canal had
always been a work that interested me very much. It was analagous to
that which I had carried out on the Danube. Our work was that of making
the river Navigable, whilst theirs was to cut a new channel for the passage
of ships. I had been from time to time, consulted by the Board of Trade
about these difficulties and knew that Mr. Farrer, the Secretary of the
Board of Trade, had always advocated my being employed on this duty. I accepted the offer and the War Office arranged for the performance
of my duties during my absence. In August I got definite orders to repair
to Constantinople. My own wish had been that I should be allowed to go out
and visit the Canal, taking Gibraltar on my way, and from the Canal, which
I thought it would be most useful to see, make my way up to Constantinople.
But the Foreign Office thought that my presence on the Bosphorous was
required immediately and I had to get there as speedily as possible. I first of all, visited my wife and Edith at Eastbourne, whither they
had gone from London, and then I started for Constantinople. As I had to go direct, I wished to travel
via Vienna, and my old haunts on the Danube, but, unfortunately
cholera at that time prevailed in Vienna, and I should have been put in
quarantine on arriving at Constantinople. I therefore took the route via
Berlin, Cracow, and Odessa, whence I took boat for Constantinople, which
I reached in six days from the time of leaving England. I was very warmly
received by Sir Henry Elliot, under whom I had served before, and by degrees,
my various colleagues arrived. This Suez Canal Commission was a much
larger one than the European Commission of the Danube had been, for every
Maritime Power was represented on it. There were in all twelve countries,
and most of them had two if not three Commissioners, so that altogether
we were a body of twenty-four. We did not really hold our first meeting
until some six weeks after I arrived, which made me regret the haste with
which I had been hurried out, thus depriving me of the opportunity of
seeing the Canal itself and its mode of working. It would have been of
great value in our subsequent negotiations, had I been able to do this.
However, one advantage there was in being on the spot so early, that I
became acquainted with my colleagues by degrees and learned their views.
We held our first meeting on 6th October, and were presided over by Edhem Pasha,
who subsequently became Grand Vizier, our meetings being held in the
Public Offices of Seraglio Point. Before meeting, one of the difficulties which
I had to treat of with the Ambassador, was the tenor of the
instructions given to the Turkish Delegates, which seemed entirely to
frustrate the objects we had in view of settling the Suez Canal question
as well as general questions of Tonnage. The Turkish Instructions had been drafted in such a crafty manner,
and at such great length, that the principal point of the matter we had
come together to discuss, was (probably intentionally) lost. It appeared to me (and I was able to carry some of my colleagues with
me in the opinion) that such a large Commission as we were, required certain
rules as to the order of debate-rules under which questions once decided
should be considered definitely settled and not be gone back upon on future
occasions. This view was impressed on my mind by my experience on the Danube.
Although we were a smaller body, we found such regulations very valuable and
I therefore framed a similar set for the guidance of our discussions in this
big Commission. The importance of these rules was manifested by the great
opposition that was raised on points determining the definite nature of our
decisions. They proved of the greatest use to us in the subsequent discussions.
With regard to the order of our discussions, it was decided that we should
first of all determine what was the proper tonnage on which the dues paid
by vessels should be levied. The whole difference had arisen on the claim
made by the Suez Canal Company to levy the very heavy dues granted by their
concession on the gross tonnage of vessels. They had begun by levying on
the nett tonnage, but after three years they changed their system; in fact
M. de Lesseps had been very much attacked by his shareholders, some of whom
maintained that his concession entitled him to levy on a ton, which they considered to be a cubic metro This would have inflicted a tremendous tax on shipping, and was not recognized in any country as the taxable tonnage. M. de Lesseps thought to shirk this conclusion of his shareholders by taxing the gross tonnage, which really meant increasing the dues he was levying by about 50 percent. That sudden change had of course made the shipowners cry out. The question had been decided in the courts of France, first of all in favour of the shipowners; but the judgement was reversed on appeal in favour of the Company. The English Shipowners and others addressed their Governments; the Governments had referred the matter to the Sultan, as it was admitted that, having granted the Concession under which the dues were levied, he alone had the right to decide on what tonnage they were to be levied. This was admitted by both parties for the dispute. The Sultan, however, declared that he himself was doubtful as to what the correct tonnage should be, and therefore this International Commission was assembled in order to advise him as to what was meant by the tonnage in the Concession. The Commission decided in the first instance to examine the general question of tonnage and then to proceed to decide on its application to the Suez Canal. In my Danube experience, where we had been obliged
to tax all vessels equally, I had learnt that hardly any two countries
had the same system of measuring the tonnage of their ships, and we had been
obliged to adopt the system which was known as the Danube Rule. This was really
a modification of the English Rule, which the Board of Trade wished to introduce,
but which they had not succeeded in passing into law. The great question to be
determined was, first, how a vessel should be measured for its gross tonnage,
and, secondly, what deduction should be made for the nett tonnage, that is to
say, the carrying capacity of a ship which was considered to be the proper
tonnage on which she should pay dues. The first question, therefore, that the International Commission thought
it best to decide was, "What is the gross tonnage of a vessel?". This had
been, in the first half of the century, generally determined by rough measurement
s, taking the length, breadth, and depth of a vessel as the determining factors. The result of such measurement was, that vessels were built on a form designed to give a far larger carrying capacity than the multiplication of those factors would show as being her tonnage. Such vessels were frequently simply floating coffins, as all attempts to improve the shape of the vessel for navigating purposes were frustrated by this desire to obtain an amount of tonnage not represented in the certificates. In the early fifties Mr Moorsom had pressed
upon the Government the desirability of ascertaining the tonnage of a vessel
by accurately measuring, on mathematical principles, its interior capacity and,
in 1854, Parliament had passed the "Manchester Shipping Act", in which this
principle was adopted. It consisted in taking measurements of the interior of a
ship's hull, giving the number of cubic feet comprised in it. Although England had adopted these rules, other nations still clung
to the old rule-ofthumb measurement, and therefore, the tonnage of their
vessels differed very considerably from the tonnage of English ships,
had taken account of the form of the vessel. This system, which exactly followed the shape of the vessel, encouraged
builders to give the ships the form best adapted to navigation, and to ensure
safety, as well as speed. I have previously touched on this subject in connection with the tonnage
of vessels frequenting the Danube, and pointed out that the Danube Commission
had recommended that an International Agreement should be arrived at by which
the vessels of all nations should be measured according to the same rules.
A practical means of putting this into effect had now arisen in connection with
the Suez Canal dues. Happily, one of the French delegates on this tonnage
commission was also a member of the Danube Commission and, therefore, was able
to corroborate the statements made by me as to the inequalities of the various
systems. In the discussion of this question I was warmly supported by Capt. Jansen
the Delegate of Holland, Capt. Mattei the Delegate
of Italy and less usefully
by the German, Austrian, Spanish, Swedish, Belgian, and Greek delegates:
but the Russian and second French delegates apparently feared that the
Moorsom system might act detrimentally to the interests of the Suez Canal. After a lengthy discussion, however, this system of measuring tonnage
was recognized as so obviously sound, that the International Commission
adopted the Moorsom rules as those which ought to prevail among all Maritime
nations. The principal struggle between M. de Lesseps' supporters and the
rest of the delegates then lay in defining what was the nett tonnage of a ship.
The Lesseps' advocates endeavoured to obtain a resolution that what they
called the utilizable capacity of a ship should be the nett tonnage. The
majority of the Commission, however, inclined to what had come to be defined
as the Danube Rule. Really, the Danube Rule was a modification of the English
law, which the Board of Trade had recommended the Danube Commission to adopt,
as a fair international system for levying dues on the ships frequenting that
river. The mode of fixing the nett tonnage under the English law of 1854,
which was still in force, consisted in making a deduction for engine space,
coal bunkers etc, on a very rude calculation based on a percentage of the
ship's gross tonnage, without taking any account of the actual space occupied
by the machinery etc. The Danube Rule, on the contrary, took account of the
actual space occupied, and was, therefore a much more fair and accurate
indication of the balance of tonnage left for the conveyance of cargo and
passengers. Even this rule was considered by many Commissioners, as pressing
hardly on a vessel in her payment of canal and dock dues, and they made further
deductions, representing the space occupied by the officers and crew.
Consequently, between M. de Lesseps' supporters and the rest of the Commission,
the question of the utilizable capacity became so keen that the French and
Russian Commissioners withdrew from the discussions. The great majority of the
Commission, however, continued their labours and arrived at the nett tonnage
as sketched above. The view that I took of the whole position was this,
- and my colleague, Sir Philip Francis,
went heartily with me in it - that the Commission while fixing the
legal tonnage, which ought to be the rule in the future for levying dues
on the Suez Canal, should not endeavour to push those rules to the extremity
of ruining the Company. There were Commissioners who had been my strenuous
supporters in carrying these rules, who desired to proclaim them as the law,
and to insist that judgment should be pronounced on the Company to the effect
that, having in the past illegally levied dues far in excess of those to which
they were entitled, they should be compelled to make a refund. There is no doubt
that judgment to that effect formally passed would have paralysed the Suez Canal
Company, and by making it impossible for its finances to suffice for its
liabilities, would have led to bankruptcy. We felt that, however much
M. de Lesseps might have endeavoured to create a work favourable to France as
against the world, still he had carried out a very grand scheme, and we thought
the rest of the world ought to acknowledge this, and not press its strong
position on this tonnage question to the point of ruining the undertaking.
I therefore formed a compromise, which I hoped would be acceptable to all
parties, and would enable the company to continue to carry on the administration
of a work which had been of so much advantage to commerce generally. The effect of the judgment, in the sense that the Company were only entitled
to levy on the nett tonnage, would not only have obliged them to refund a very
large sum, but would have furnished them with a revenue insufficient for their
annual expenditure. The concession to the Company entitled them to levy
ten francs a ton on the tonnage of each vessel. The effect of levying that
ten francs a ton on the gross tonnage, which of course M. de Lesseps had
adopted, was equivalent to levying fifteen francs a ton on the nett tonnage.
My proposal was that they should be allowed to levy a surtax of three and
a half francs a ton, in addition to the ten francs, and that that surtax
should be reduced as the full amount of tonnage passing through the Canal
increased, in certain defined proportions so as to give them an assured
yearly revenue. This proposal led to the French and Russian Commissioners
returning to the discussions, and disposed the Turkish Government, which had
to pronounce eventually on the question, to accept the decisions of the
Commission more readily. A great effort was made by the French Commissioners,
supported by the Turkish Government, to get the surtax made up to five francs,
but strenuously opposed that modification of the proposal, because it would
have virtually given the dues on the gross tonnage, and so would have admitted
that the Company had been right in what they had done, which we could not accept.
Eventually, the compromise was accepted and I was requested to prepare
the Report in which the results of the Commission's proceedings were embodied.
In it I was assisted by M. Girette,
who represented the Messageries Maritimes,
which ensured the French text being correct. The Sultan adopted our Report as
defining the Tonnage Law of Turkey, and the Suez Canal Company was called
upon to accept these conditions, which were ordered to take effect from
the 1st of April 1874. This result of the Commission was very distasteful to some of the delegates
who had warmly supported me in the tonnage question, and I am afraid that
they were rather disposed to blame me for having arrested the judgment which
they were so anxious to pronounce upon the Company; but I believe that I
rendered a distinct service to European interests in providing this escape
from a very disagreeable dilemma. I consulted Sir Henry Elliot,
H.M. Ambassador,
on every step I took and met with his cordial concurrence and support,
especially in all the dealings with the Sublime Porte, and I had the
satisfaction of meeting with the full approval of Her Majesty's Government. The following is a copy of the despatch which Sir Henry Elliot wrote to
the Government on the conclusion of their labours. In transmitting to your Lordship the accompanying reports from Her Majesty's
Delegates on the Tonnage Commission, I am enclosing the agreement on the
question of the Suez Canal dues which has been unanimously adopted by the
whole of the Members. I must take the opportunity of bearing witness to
the energy and ability shown by those gentlemen in their discharge of an
extremely difficult duty. Col. Stokes' complete mastery of the subject, his tact and conciliatory
disposition, have been freely recognized by all his colleagues, and he found
a most efficient Coadjutor in Sir Philip Francis. Enough of the proceedings of the Commission is already known, to have removed
the impression so industriously circulated by M. de Lesseps, of the hostility
of England to the Canal. The agreement that has been come to is known to
have been proposed by Her Majesty's Delegates almost exactly in its present
form six weeks ago and its liberality is generally recognized, although,
probably on account of the important events then passing in France, the French
delegates were not authorized to entertain it. Foreign Office. January 29th. 1874. Sir, I have received your despatch signed by yourself and Sir P. Francis,
No.43. 23rd.ult. enclosing a report of the proceedings of the International
Tonnage Commission at Constantinople, and I have now the pleasure, at the
conclusion of the labours of the Commission, in expressing to you the sense
entertained by H.M. Government of the manner in which the British Representatives
have discharged their difficult and delicate duties upon the
occasion in question. (Signed) Granville. There was very general satisfaction felt by the Turkish Government
at this question having been so satisfactorily arranged and all the Governments
concerned approved. The Commission did not separate without banquets and entertainments, given
by the Turkish authorities, and decorations were freely bestowed upon the
members of the Commission. For my own part, having already one Class of the
order of the Medjideh, the Government were able to allow me to accept promotion
to the Second Class. Our discussions had come to an end on 13th. December, but
there was much to be done after that in bringing to a close the details of our
work, and in the mean time, H.M. Government sent me orders to visit the
Suez Canal and report fully upon all its conditions, and on the administration
there. I dined at the Embassy on Christmas Day, and on the 29th., had the
pleasure of listening to a performance of the "Messiah" at the English Crimean
Memorial Church, of which my old friend Canon Curtis
was the incumbent. Miss Kate Ranken and Mr. James, of the Royal Navy,
took part in the performance. All through my stay at Constantinople and Therapia, where I principally
lived at the Hotel Petala, I had met with the greatest kindness and hospitality
from Sir Henry and Lady Elliot, and I dined frequently with them. In the
evenings Sir Henry and I used to have hardly contested games of chess.
We were very equal in strength and as I had at the same time on me the
great strain and labour of the discussions which involved very much
calculation, after a time I was obliged to say that I could not carry on
these desperate contests at the same time with my official labours. On the Ist. January 1874, 1 embarked on an Austrian - Lloyd's steamer,
in a snowstorm. In fact, the weather had been very bad in Constantinople
for some two or three weeks. We touched at Gallipoli and Mitylene and anchored
at Smyrna. We sailed again on the 4th. and after a rough passage, reached
Alexandria at dark on the 8th. 1 at once went up to Cairo and was met by my
old friend Col. Stanton Her Majesty's Consul General in Egypt who took me to
his house where I stayed with him till the 2nd. February. I had a pleasant time
at Cairo. Stanton held a very influential position, was a great favourite with
the Khedive and was much looked up to by all the Egyptian officials and
by Society in general. I was introduced to the Khedive, Ismail, and made
the acquaintance of the Grand Vizier, Nubar Pasha, and of his rival,
Cherif Pasha. I called also upon Tewfik Pasha, the Khedive's eldest son,
who eventually succeeded him; and made the acquaintance of several Englishmen
of note, viz, Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, Professor Owen, the great comparative
anatomist, also, Karl Haag, the artist, and Dr. Bake, the traveller.
Soon after I reached Cairo, the races came off, I did not care much about
fourth rate races such as these were, and besides, I wanted to see the Pyramids,
but until they were over, I could not get the Stantons to think of anything else.
The Dromedary races, however, were amusing, and remarkable not so much for
the speed of the animals as for the antics of the riders. Although I was nearly four weeks in Cairo, I never, at that time,
got to the Pyramids, as the weather became very bad, and I myself was
out of health. I had the pleasure of visiting Karl Haag's studio, where
he showed me some splendid sketches of camels which were, at that time,
his special study. He also pointed out to me that in that climate the
shadows as seen on the sand were perfectly blue, so blue that he dare not
show them in colour as they really were, or it would never have been believed
that they were true to nature. The sand, it would seem, reflected the brilliant
colour of the sky, as I realized myself on going out. I visited all the
buildings of interest in and around Cairo, and had the pleasure of frequently
going to the Opera with the Stantons. The Opera was one of Ismail Pasha's
great extravagances. It was said that it cost him £100,000 a year, as he
took care always to have excellent artistes from Europe, and the properties
and costumes were of a most elaborate character.  Map of the Suez Canal region visited by Stokes
On the 2nd. February I started for the Suez Canal, reaching Ismailia by train and proceeding thence to Port Said in a steam-launch. I examined the works and then, on the 4th embarked on the S.S. "Duke of Sutherland". we did not reach Suez till sundown on the 6th. 1 landed and went to the old P. and O. hotel, where I had the misfortune to fall downstairs. My foot tripped on the top step and there being no banister, I went head foremost to the bottom, striking my knee against several steps. I was very much hurt and had to lie up at Suez till the 2nd. March. I received much kindness from Admiral Willoughby, who was in charge of the East India Co's Barracks at Suez and from Mr. West, Her Majesty's Consul, and many others. Whilst I was laid up there, amongst other visitors, Duke William of Wurtemberg called upon me, and I had also the pleasure of seeing Col. Gordon, who had succeeded me as Commissioner on the Danube. He was on his way to the Soudan to take up the government of that country. He called upon me on the 21st. February and we had long talks over my report and his own future prospects. He came at night after I was in bed, and next morning before I was up he appeared again and then left for Suakim to make his way to the Nile. On the 2nd. March I steamed in a launch to Ismailia, as the guest of Ferdinand de Lesseps, and was put up by him in his pretty chalet on the shore of Lake Timsah. I stayed there only one night and my host showed me all the points of interest about Ismailia, principally the Waterworks, which had been established at the extremity of the Canal, bringing the Nile water from Cairo, whence it is driven by forcing-pumps through a long pipe to Port Said, a distance of some fifty miles. Round these waterworks, which were superintended by M. Pierre, who had married an English wife, the Nile water had deposited successive layers upon the desert sand, and had formed a most fertile garden in which fruits and flowers of all kinds grew most luxuriantly. Beyond it was a large plantation of Filao trees, which had become, in the 15 or 16 years since its formation, a thick tangled wood. I was able to see how the process of forming this soil over the desert gradually increased the fertility. The first flooding of the Nile water over the sand enabled the vegetation to begin; with one or two layers strawberries would grow, and as the successive layers formed a greater depth of soil, plants of stronger roots and requiring still greater depth could be planted: thus by constant irrigation, the mud-bearing water of the Nile, made a sufficient depth of soil to grow vegetables, and eventually trees. At the Company's offices, I was interested in seeing a section taken through the old bottom of the Great Bitter Lake before the sea was again let into it in filling the Canal. This section some eight feet in depth showed the successive layers of salt deposited at the bottom in the ages during which the Lakes were gradually drying up. I made the acquaintance, amongst others, of M. Ruysnaer, the Dutch Consul General, who had been a great supporter of M. de Lesseps in all his difficulties with the Governments. From Lesseps himself I met with the greatest attention and courtesy. At our first interview (it was the first time I had ever met him) I rather astonished him by saying, in reply to an observation he had made upon the hostility of the English Government to his designs, that I thought Back to the Top "How could that be", he said, "when he opposed me in every direction?" "Still, Sir," I replied, "the fact is, that the opposition he offered you delayed the execution of the work of the Canal to a period when it was possible for it to become a success. If it had been opened, as you hoped, in four or five years after the concession was granted, it would have been a great failure, for you would have had no vessels to navigate it. Happily for you, before the date on which you opened it, compound engines had been discovered, and vessels fitted with them pass through the Canal in great numbers. If you had begun to navigate the Canal before, you would have had no trade, because sailing vessels, on which you counted, could not use it. Palmerston was your best friend," I repeated, whereupon he laughed. I had reason to feel that M. de Lesseps recognized that my action at Constantinople had been really friendly to the Canal and therefore treated me with great consideration. I did not, however, meet with the same courtesy from his wife, who attacked me violently at table, before numerous guests, for the injury done to the Canal Company by the Governments; so much so that M. de Lesseps himself had to come to my rescue! The following day, I was suffering from one of the bad headaches which used frequently to attack me, and the train from Suez to Ismailia, by which I was going on to Cairo, had been blocked by the sand drifted across the railway and was six hours late: during the greater part of which time I had to endure a very warm discussion with M. de Lesseps and M. Ruysnaer, on the general question of the difficulties of the Suez Canal with the Powers; but being wretchedly ill, I escaped from it as soon as I could, to lie down at the station and wait for the train to come in. On reaching Cairo I stayed at Shepherd's Hotel, which in those days was in its old form and style, but which has since been re-built and spoilt to a great extent. Here, at last, I was able to visit the Pyramids with the Stantons, but, owing to the injury to my knee, from which I had only partially recovered, I was unable to do any climbing or to attempt to ascend them.
I only remained in Cairo four days, and left for Alexandria taking passage on the P. and 0. steamer "Sumatra", where I again met Dr. Blake. I had seen him some weeks before in Cairo, on his way to Mount Sinai, whither he was going in order to verify a theory concerning the wanderings of the children of Israel. He held, that the miraculous features of the deliverance were due to purely natural causes. As regards the passage of the Red Sea, he maintained that there was a reef across the Gulf of Akaba, a narrow arm of the sea, on which a strong easterly wind would lower the level of the water, and leave a really dry passage across, and also, that the wall of water "on the right hand and on the left", meant merely that there was deep water on the side of the reef on which they passed over, and that when the Egyptians followed, a westerly wind blew, which brought back the waters and drowned them. A further point was, that "the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day" was due to volcanic fire and smoke of Mount Sinai. He told me when I met him on the "Sumatra", that he could not be quite positive about the reef across the Gulf, but that he made his way up to Mount Sinai, and as he went, there was, in the distance, all the appearance of volcanic action which he was expecting, and also that he found on the slopes of the hill, bones and relics of sacrifices which had been offered there. He made his way up but did not discover the crater, he was nevertheless thoroughly convinced that his theory was the correct one! We landed at Brindisi on the 13th. March, and I thence took train to Naples. I had the good fortune at Brindisi, to fall in with Col. Brooke, a son of Rajah Brooke of Borneo. We travelled together, stayed together at Naples and visited Pompeii. He was a very interesting companion, as he had been on the staff of Lord Napier of Magdala (Sir Robert Napier as he then was) in the expedition to China, in which, with the French army, we took the Summer Palace. In going through the Palace he said, the French were looting it in all directions, the English were not so keen, and a Frenchman came up to him with a very heavy and splendid vase, and asked him whether it was ormulu or gold. Col. Brooke thought it must be ormulu and said so, whereupon the Frenchman dropped it and ran off. Brooke then lifted it himself, and found from the weight that it must be gold, so he took it into camp to Sir Robert Napier, where it was put into the Prize Chest!! I met Col. Brooke more than once after that. He was killed at the Siege of Kandahar in 1878. From Naples I went to Rome and there had the pleasure of meeting again two old colleagues. One was the Marquis D'Aste, who had shared my policy in the Danube Commission 17 years before. We were delighted to meet again and he entertained me most hospitably on two different occasions. -- The other was Capt. Mattei, my recent Italian colleague in the Tonnage Commission. Capt. Mattei had promised me that if I came to Rome, he would have great pleasure in acting as my cicerone. He was thoroughly well acquainted with every part of the city, and was a most interesting companion.
My stay there was necessarily so short that I begged him to show me principally Ancient Rome, with which my youthful studies had made me more acquainted than with its modern history. The reason that I was rather pressed for time was that I had heard from my brother Frank, whom I had not seen for 14 years, that he was on his way home from Australia, and would reach Venice about the 22nd. of the month. As I wished to have a day or two at Florence on my way to Venice, I could only devote four days to Rome. This time, I turned to excellent account with Capt. Mattei in visiting all the most interesting parts, but I did not attempt any of the beautiful galleries, to obtain a thorough knowledge of which, one ought to spend many weeks there. I here made the acquaintance of Sir Augustus Paget, Her Majesty's Minister, and saw Lord Hammond, my old chief at the Foreign of fine, who was then in Rome. From Rome I went on to Florence where I had a delightful day in the splendid galleries of the Pitti Palace, pushing on to Venice the same night. Next morning I went on board the P. and O. steamer then arriving, and found my brother. With him were Mr. and Mrs. Grant Thorold. We did not stay in Venice but made our way to Milan where we stopped a night, and went over the Cathedral. Going on to Paris, I renewed my acquaintance with Lord Lyons, who had been Ambassador at Constantinople while I was Danube Commissioner, and with whom I was subsequently to have much to do. During my absence from England on the Suez Canal question, to settle which I was sent out by Lord Granville, there had been a change of Ministry, and on arriving in London on the 27th. March, I found that Lord Derby had become Foreign Secretary and was therefore my chief at the Foreign Office. I had feared that, having completed the International tonnage work under Lord Granville, it might be detrimental to me to come under another Secretary of State, who might not take the same interest in the matter as Lord Granville had done; but I was gratified to find that Lord Derby received me very well, and had not forgotten the incidents in which he had so materially aided me in 1867, when I appealed to him for assistance in obtaining financial resources for the Danube Commission.
On the 1st. April M. de Lesseps had been directed to put in force the new arrangements made at Constantinople. He had formally protested against them and declared that he would not act on them. Lord Derby consulted me on the subject and I recommended that a military force should be sent from Cairo, to compel obedience to the decision of the Sultan, which had been given in accordance with the recommendations of the International Commission. This advice was adopted and General Stone, an American, commanding the Egyptian Troops, was directed to take possession of the Canal. As soon as M. de Lesseps saw that he could no longer defy the authorities, he gave the necessary orders for compliance. At the same time, he lodged a strong protest against the Sultan and the Khedive, and held them responsible for the losses which the Canal Company might sustain in consequence of the decision of the Sultan. This state of things led the Foreign Office to desire my constant presence in London, in order to advise upon the successive phases of the difficulties as they arose. It being Easter time, I got permission to absent myself for a few days from London, and went down to Poyston, with my brother, where we arrived in the early morning of Good Friday. After a fortnight's stay at home, I returned to town and remained there for several months in constant attendance at the Foreign office. I took up my quarters at Lane's Hotel, where my brother was also staying, which enabled me to see more of him in his short visit to England than I could otherwise have done. One of the first things I did on my return was to complete my Report on the Suez Canal, which I submitted to Lord Derby. In this report I emphatically condemned the policy of the Company in prolonging their piers in order to maintain depth - a project which I am glad to say they very shortly after this, entirely abandoned. Many difficult questions in connection with the Suez Canal were constantly arising. Shipowners desired to recover from the Company the excess dues which had been charged since 1872 upon the gross instead of upon the nett tonnage. I endeavoured to impress upon Lord Derby that it would be better policy to restrain English shipowners from action of this kind, as it would have a ruinous effect upon the Suez Canal Company to claim these arrears. In fact, the same motives were valid against such action as those which had induced me, with the consent of the Government, to bring about the compromise of a surtax. To have granted the shipowners' request would have been to stultify our action in that Commission. Lord Derby accepted my views and the various demands of shipowners to bring about the refund from the Suez Canal Company, were steadily resisted.
There were many technical points to settle with regard to the application of the new tonnage rules, concerning which constant communication with the Board of Trade and surveyors was necessary. There were also proposals as to the necessity for transferring the administration and maintenance of the Canal from the hands of a private company to the direction of a public authority, a transfer, the advantage of which I pointed out in a long memorandum which I addressed to Lord Derby. I also had to report upon various questions connected with the finance of the Company and I urged Lord Derby to insist on the Admiralty making surveys, to enable me to advise upon the question of the maintenance of the depth of the entry, which appeared to be constantly menacing the passage of vessels owing to the shoals formed at the Port Said end. M. de Lesseps' protest, of itself, gave rise to constant correspondence with Foreign Powers on the subject of the position of the Suez Canal Company, upon all of which I had to advise the Government. In fact, my despatches were incorporated in the text of the replies sent. Another source of trouble was the constant complaint made by the owners of English ships against the action of the Suez Canal officers in the application, forced upon them, of the rules we had framed at Constantinople. The Board of Trade had adopted special forms of certificate for ships going through the Canal, and after they had been issued and had come into operation, the Canal Company gradually grew accustomed to accepting them as final and authorative: but, until that period of tranquility arrived, complaints were incessant and were all referred to me for treatment. On the 10th. October I received through Lord Derby the offer of a Knighthood. As he had asked for a K.C.B. for me, I told him that I preferred waiting for a vacancy, and declined the lower honour. During the year 1874 I had been able to pay frequent visits to Poyston and had seen my brother Frank take his departure for Australia via North America. He had only spent two months in England and was back again. in Adelaide within the six months which he had allotted to himself for his run home, winning thus a bet of a new hat which he had made before starting! ! During the autumn of 1874 I was able to make arrangements for my son,Arthur, to go out to Ceylon as a coffee planter; the defect in his mouth having rendered the choice of a profession for him very difficult. To arrange this, I made my first visit to Scotland in order to see Mr. Anderson, a Ceylon planter, who had been recommended to me by Mr. John Buchanan. I took Chester en route in order to see Mr. Buchanan's mother (Pat Robertson Ross' sister) at Backford. She had become Mrs. Bryans by her marriage with the Rector of Backford. At Chester I called upon Bishop Jacobson, who had been a great friend of my brother Edward's at Christ Church, and whose acquaintance I had made there many years before. I had a cordial greeting from the Bishop. From Chester I made my way to Perth, where my friend Hartley met me at the station and took me to the house of Mr. Conning, whose daughter was the widow of Hartley's brother. I arranged with Mr. Anderson for Arthur to purchase a share of the Kinloch coffee estate in Ceylon.
From Perth I went on to Old Deer, to make the acquaintance of Dean Ranken, whose daughter's friendship we have enjoyed for many years. I had a hearty welcome there. but stayed only one night, retuming the next day to Aberdeen I hence I made my way to Inverness and down the Caledonian Canal to Bannavie where I left the boat as the weather became so bad. The next day I drove over to Ballyhulish, starting the following day by coach at Tyndrum Station. I had a fine day for going through the Glencoe Pass, down Glenfalloch, to Loch Lomond, where I passed the night I took steamer nest day to Inversnaid, coached to Loch Katrine, and drove through the Trossachs, arriving in Edinburgh that night. The following day. Moir Darling showed me all the principal points of interest in Edinburgh, and on the next day I returned to London, greatly pleased with my first hasty view of Scotland. I had to make various financial arrangements for establishing Arthur in Ceylon, and putting my agreement with Mr Anderson on a legal footing. On the 12th October, I took Arthur on board the "Eldorado", on which he was to make the voyage to Ceylon with the Andersons. My stay in London on Foreign Office business gave me the opportunity of seeing many of my friends living at easy distance trom town, with whom I used to pass my Sundays In this way I kept up my friendship with the Tylers, Pasleys, Cowburns, Smith-Masters, Bakers, Edmeades &c. One particularly interesting acquaintance I made at this time was with Capt. Eads, the American engineer, who had the concession from his Government to open the mouth of the Mississippi This river, although immensely larger than the Danube, had many features resembling those at the mouth of the latter. The great success of our works at Sulina bad induced the American Govemment to ask he opinion of Sir Charles Hartley upon the Mississippi question. He had reported in favour of opening that one of the mouths which the American engineers bad considered to be least favourable for improvement Tbe Government had sent a Commission of Engineers to the mouth of the Danube to see the works there, and they had reported so favourably on the system adopted, that the concession for carrying out works of a similar nature, had been granted to Capt Eads. Capt Eads frequently consulted Hartley on the subject, and appointed him advisory engineer, to aid him in his task durng the construction of the Mississippi works. These were eventually carried out entirely on the lines of the Danube works, and resulted in am equally great success in the course of their construction difficulties arose up the river, which were solved by following Sir Charles Hartley's valuable advice for their treatment. It was, therefore, very agreeable to me to meet Capt Eads, who at this time had another great scheme on foot for connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, not by a canal, but by a ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. He had with him a model of his scheme, of most ingenious construction, but, though a model ship might be got on to a set of rails, the idea was never sufficiently taken up for the construction of a railway to carry ships of 3000 or 4000 tons across the Isthmus. Another very interesting acquaintance I made at this time was that of Col. Warburton, a great friend of my brother's in Australia, who had achieved the remarkable feat of crossing the desert which separates South Australia proper from the Northern shores, an exploit which had been frequently attempted but never before accomplished. Col. Warburton, on this journey, endured terrible hardships and finally, was carried, more dead than alive, into the habitable parts. He was a fine old gentleman and a pleasant companion. Go back to Chapter 10 or forward to Chapter 12 Go back to Autobiography Contents Page.
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