text:  It is evident moreover that the Arabs would gladly have yielded to any amicable arrangement short of the absolute cession of the town which they regarded as disgraceful: --the erection of a factory which might have been fortified so as to give us the virtual command of the place and the harbour would probably have met with no opposition:--and even if Aden had fallen as it seemed on the point of doing into the hands of the Pasha of Egypt there can be little doubt that the Viceroy would have shown himself equally ready to facilitate our intercourse with India in his Arabian as in his Egyptian harbours