St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1894-12-13

Ferdinand Marie de LeSSepS, who
died in France last Thursday. was
born at Versailles, Nov. 10, 1905, his
father being Baron de Lesseps. At
the age of % years he was appointed
attache to the French consulate at
Lisbon He was afterward engaged
it the commercial department of the
minister of foreign affairs. He then
became ar attache to the consul gen.
eral at Tunis, and in 1881 was made
consul to Alexandria, Egypt. In his
35th year he was consul at ROtter-
dam. One year later he was trans
ferred to the consulate at Barcelona.
He was minister at the court Of Mad
rid in the last days of the reign of
Louis PHILIPPE, and returned to Paris
after the revolution which drove the
monarch from the throne, and was
sent by the republican government
to represent France at Rome, then
under a government headed by MAJ
zini
His fame rests chiefly on his scheme
to pierce the isthmus of Suez by
means of canal, and in successfully
carrying it out he showed much zeal
and indefa tigable energy.
It was in 1854, when in Egypt on
a visit to Mehemet Said, that he
opened the project to Said Pasha,
who, seeing the advantage, invited
him to draw up a memorial upon
the subject. The work was begun
soon after the company was organ
lied in 1859, and immense sums were
expended. the Pasha of Egypt TAX
IF Oh heci1a
permitting native laborers to be en-
ployed. The scheme was at first ia
vored by English capitalists, but
belief soon gained ground that the
project was virtually political one,
and it received no encouragement
from the English government.
On the death of the Pasha of
Egypt, in 1868, the question Of the
sanction of the Ottoman Porte. was
actively discussed, and the right of
the Sultan to grant it formally in
sisted upon. The result was the
withdrawal of the permission to the
company to hold any portion of
Egyptian territory, and, after long
and continued dispute, the claim for
compensation by the company rep
resented by De Lesseps was left to
the arbitration of the Emperor of
the French. who imposed certain
conditions on both parties and al
lowed the work to be continued.
A canal with sufficient water to
admit the passage of steamboats,
was opened Aug. 5, 1865. In 1867,
by the use of gigantic dredging ma
obi he o1 no
larged sufficiently to permit small
ships and schooners to pass. Then,
in 1869, the waters of the Mediter
ranean mingled with the Red Sea,
which event was commemorated by
a grand celebration at Suez, and on
Nov. II the canal was formally
opened at Port Said.
During the Egyptian expedition of
1882 he strongly opposed the policy
pursued by Great Britain, and re-
garded Arab Pasha as poble pat
riot. In the following year he en-
tered into preliminary agreement
with England for cutting second
Suez canal, but the project was
never carried out.
He was fur a long time engaged in
the work of cutting a canal through
the Isthmus of Panama, but, after
an expenditure of 1900, 100000, the
project failed.
De Lesseps was a great traveller,
and in 1880 he visited America in
furtherance of his last and disas-
trous enterprise, in the interest of
which he addressed d circular to our
he
ton of the proposed interocean high
way in eight years. The failure of
that pledge caused financial ruin to
many French investors, a large por
ton of whom were people of moder-
ate means who had invested all they
possessed in the project. In 1886 he
visited the scene of his undertaking,
and was enthusiastically received by
the people of the isthmus.
He delighted to inform Americans
that he was present at the birth of
the Monroe doctrine, and so knew
more about this differently inter-
preted political dogma than the
Washington statesmen. at hap
pened in this WISE" he once said. 81
was an attache of the French foreign
Office when Canning, in order to
check the holy alliance, proposed to
France that she join with England in
suggesting to President Monroe that
he issue a proclamation declaring
that the European powers must not
NEEDLE in the affairs of the new born
Spanish-American republics. I saw
all the state papers which passed be-
tween the cabinets of London and
Paris. Icopied some of them. Twas
then a youth of IS or 10. So you
see that I was acquainted with the
Monroe doctrine before President
Monroe himself, in fact, before there
was any such doctrine
Count de Lesseps was also the au-
thor of the plans of the canal of Cor
nth which has lust been successfully