Correspondence memoirs by de Lesseps Ferdinand de Lesseps, Souvenirs de quarante ans, Second Volume, Paris, Nouvelle Revue, 1887.

ORIGINS OF THE SUEZ CANAL To S.M.W. Ruyssenaers, Consul General of the Netherlands, in Egypt Paris, 15 November 1852. When you wrote to me that there was no chance of getting the idea of digging a channel through the Suez isthmus accepted by Abbas-Pasha, I mentioned my project to one of my friends' financiers, M. Benoit Fould, who was going to form an association with a business aiming to set up a property savings bank in Constantinople. He was impressed by the ambition of the project and by the potential profitability - including the concessions to be requested from Turkey - of taking on the unique task of building the Suez Canal. The negotiator sent to Constantinople encountered problems which led to the project's being turned down. One of the arguments raised against it was the impossibility of taking charge of work to be carried out in Egypt, where only the Viceroy had the right to undertake such a project. Under these circumstances, I shall put my ideas on the opening up of the isthmus into the background and, until the time seems more propitious, I shall devote my energies to agriculture and the building of a model farm on the estate which my mother-in-law, Mme Delamalle, has just purchased.

____Summary____ History Report to Napoleon Biographical entry on de Lesseps Correspondence memoirs by de Lesseps Biography of Mohammed Said Memoirs by de Lesseps Firman of Mohammed Said Funding and shares portfolio File on the British opposition The First Blow of the Pickaxe October 1859: Reception at St Cloud The entrance of the Mediterranean into lake Timsah. Biography of Ismail Pasha The Opinions of the French The Imperial Decision Dredgers Firman of the Consul Abdul Aziz Call for subscription The Universal Exhibition The Joining of the Two Seas Tributes Content