On 7 January and into the early hours of 8 January, Cornwallis, acting informally with instructions from Curzon, sounded out Faisal on Iraq. While agreeing in principle to a mandate and not to intrigue against the French, Faisal was equivocal about his candidacy: "I will never put myself forward as a candidate"...Hussein wants "Abdullah to go to Mesopotamia" and "the people would believe I was working for myself and not for my nation." He would go "if HMG rejected Abdullah and asked me to undertake the task and if the people said they wanted me".