82 A Short History of the Middle East
Suez; and when the French government showed itself ready to
sponsor the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, Palnierston commented
that however great the commercial advantages might be, this
'second Bosporus' might be a source of grave political embarrass-
ment to Britain. In the declining years of the aged Mohammed Ali
the project was not pressed, and nothing could be done under his
reactionary and anti-European successor Abbas I.1 But the murder
of Abbas brought to the throne in 1854 the fat, indolent, and easy-
going Sa'id, who had as a boy been friendly with Ferdinand de
Lesseps, the young son of the French Political Agent. Onhis friend's
accession de Lesseps, who had subsequently been French Consul
at Alexandria for seven years, sent him a letter of congratulation
and was invited to revisit Egypt. These were the go-getting days
of Napoleon III: within ten days of his arrival de Lesseps had
presented the Pasha with a detailed scheme for the cutting of a
Suez Canal which Sa'id accepted; and a fortnight later the Pasha
signed the concession for the "Compagnie Universelle', subject to
the approval of his Ottoman suzerain. It was alleged that he had
not even read the agreement, and it had certainly not been exam-
ined by his judicial and financial advisers. But de Lesseps was his
friend, and he was promised 15 per cent, of the profits. What
more was needed?
De Lesseps took the opportunity of the Franco-Ottoman
friendship during the Crimean War to go to Istanbul to obtain the
Sultan's approval for the concession. He found himself however
vigorously opposed by the British Ambassador, who represented
to the Ottoman government that such a concession would eventu-
ally lead to a French protectorate over Egypt. That British opposi-
tion to the scheme was not without justification is shown by the
fact that the anti-British section of the French press had been
exulting that 'in piercing the Isthmus of Suez, we are piercing the
weak point in the British armour*. While British commercial
interests, such as the East India Co. and the P. &: O. Steamship Co.,
favoured the scheme, Palmerston strongly opposed it as 'profitable
to France, but hostile to British interests'. In 1858 the British
government warned the Turks that if the Sultan gave his consent
he could no longer count on Britain to maintain the integrity of
his Empire. When work on the alignment of the Canal began in
1859, Sa'id replied blandly to British protests that under the
1 Ibrahim had died before his father.