Meeting of the Foreign Ministers in London—Protocol of the 5th March—Note of Chekib Effendi—Note of the 13th of March—Lord Palmerston’s explanation of the Views of the Allies regarding the Hereditary Tenure—Conference of the 16th March—Protocol—Endeavour to include France in a Convention for closing the Straits of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus—False Position of the Porte—Views of Lord Ponsonby and of the other Ambassadors—Instructions of the Austrian and British Governments—Opinions of M. Guizot—Turkish Plan of Settlement—Note of the 10th May.

When Lord Palmerston heard from Sir Robert Stopford that the Turkish fleet had arrived at Marmorice Bay, and that Ibrahim Pacha had reached Gaza, he immediately assembled the Foreign Ministers, and, on the 5th of March, they agreed to a Protocol to the following effect^[106]:—

1. That Mehemet Ali had submitted, and asked for pardon.

2. That he had delivered the Ottoman fleet to the Commissioners.

3, 4. That he had evacuated Syria; and that the Turkish authority was established there and in Candia.

5. That the Sultan had accepted the submission, and pardoned Mehemet Ali, his children, and adherents.

6. That the Sultan had announced his intention of reinstating Mehemet Ali with hereditary succession.

The conditions settled on the 15th of October and 14th November^[107], being thus fulfilled, the assembled Ministers determined that the Consuls of the Four Powers should now return to Alexandria.

On the 11th of March, Chekib Effendi, the Ottoman Minister, communicated to Lord Palmerston^[108] that the Porte had restored Mehemet Ali, and forwarded him the firmans I have already mentioned, and requested his Lordship to communicate them to the other Ambassadors in London, and he desired an answer to the official communication; whereupon Lord Palmerston again assembled the Foreign Ministers on the 13th of March^[109], and they drew up a Collective Note, expressing their lively satisfaction at the event, and communicating to the Ottoman Minister that they had heard from Alexandria, under date of the 24th of February, that Mehemet Ali had admitted, without reserve, that the treaties and laws of the empire should apply to Egypt in the same way as to the other provinces of the empire. That he had acceded to the regulation of the monetary system, the service and uniform of the troops, and the building of the ships. That he had replaced under the orders of the Sultan, the land and sea forces, and, in fact, that at the present moment he had put himself in the situation of a subject, and that it appertains to the Sultan alone to settle the internal administration, and take into consideration the wishes which Mehemet Ali has submitted to the Sultan. The Ministers finish the Note by stating, “The Undersigned are fully assured that these explanations, conceived in a sincere spirit of conciliation, would be received by the Sultan in the same manner in which he has constantly received the advice already given by his Allies,—advice disinterested and sincere, which His Highness has justly appreciated, when he accomplished, by an act of clemency, a work of pacification which his Allies had frankly aided him in effecting.”

Lord Palmerston wrote at the same time to Lord Ponsonby^[110], transmitting the Note of the Plenipotentiaries, and remarking that doubts might arise out of the wording of the first Article of the Hatti-Sheriff, which specifies the conditions to be imposed upon Mehemet Ali. “The wording of that Article might lead to the supposition, that the Sultan intended to reserve to himself to choose upon each vacancy in the pachalic of Egypt, any one of the descendants of Mehemet Ali, without regard to any fixed rule whatever; and that thus the principle of hereditary tenure would be rendered illusory.

“Her Majesty’s Government conceive, that this was by no means the intention of the Porte, and that what was meant to be established by the condition above-mentioned is, that while, on the one hand, the Sultan grants to the descendants of Mehemet Ali in the direct male line hereditary succession in the pachalic of Egypt, the Sultan reserves his own sovereign rights intact, by declaring, that those descendants shall not succeed as a matter of course and of inherent right, as would be the case with the rulers of an independent state, but shall each in turn receive his appointment from the Sultan, and by a separate act of the Sultan’s sovereign power.

“If this is a correct view of the meaning of the Article in question, there can be no difficulty on the part of the Porte in giving such an explanation thereof as will remove all misunderstandings; and the Porte might say, that is the intention of the Sultan that this right of selection shall in all cases he exercised in favour of the next male heir to the deceased Pacha, unless, by infancy or by physical incapacity, such male heir should be incapable of taking charge of the administration of the province, in which case the person next in relationship to the deceased Pacha would be appointed in his stead. The Sultan might, at the same time, make it to be clearly understood, that it is his intention that Ibrahim shall succeed to Mehemet.”

Lord Palmerston was also of opinion that it would not be difficult to settle the affair of the tribute, and that the Allies had purposely abstained from entering into the question; and that relative to the appointment of the officers, could be easily arranged.

On the 16th of March the Allied Ministers in another conference^[111] conceiving the Eastern Question settled, engaged the French Government to rejoin the European family, and they initialed a Convention recognising the right of the Porte to shut the passage of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus against ships of war of all nations. The Protocol was as follows:—

On the 6th of March Mehemet Ali’s and Said Muhib Effendi’s letters to the Vizier arrived at Constantinople^[112]. Mehemet Ali’s, in respectful terms, and with great clearness, pointed out the impossibility of his consenting to the first, third, and part of the sixth articles of the Firman; the other articles he cheerfully acceded to. The Commissioner makes a long report of the arguments he used to induce Mehemet Ali to consent, and the very clever way he evaded them; and it must be admitted the old Pacha had the best of the argument.

The Porte, as might have been expected, was now in a false position; France had so far joined the Allies as to initial the Treaty for shutting the Dardanelles, but it was not likely she would now attempt to coerce Mehemet Ali or even advise him to yield; and under this embarrassment Rechid Pacha, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, wrote to the Ministers for advice. Lord Ponsonby did not hesitate to entirely agree with Rechid Pacha that the application of Mehemet Ali to change some of the articles of the Firman was no proof of submission^[113]. The Firman, says the Ambassador, is an order, and no subject can refuse to obey an order and be considered submissive; he does not admit that he petitioned for a change, but he asserts that he disobeys. I cannot read Mehemet Ali’s letter in that sense. After giving his reasons why the hereditary succession should go by right of primogeniture, which appear to me convincing, he states, “It is evident, moreover, that his Highness, moved by sentiments of clemency, desires the maintenance of repose and tranquillity, and it is for that reason that I request that the question of the hereditary succession may be settled as has been stated above.” Surely this may be considered petitioning, and in a moderate way too, when we recollect that Mehemet Ali knew full well that the Porte had no means of enforcing these orders.

What the Ambassador says of the preparations Mehemet Ali was making for resistance is incorrect. I was at Alexandria at the time, and I saw no new preparations; there were a few men completing his unfinished works, which were so ill constructed that if not attended to they would have crumbled to pieces. He was certainly reorganizing his army, after the retreat, which was absolutely necessary; but even had he been preparing for resistance could he be blamed? The Firman that was sent to him was so perfectly absurd that no man in his senses, with an army of 50,000 or 60,000 man, and upwards of 10,000 cavalry, would have accepted such terms from a weak master; and no set of men, possessed of common understanding, and knowing the relative position of the Porte and Mehemet Ali, would have counselled such a Firman. The Ambassador finishes by recommending the Porte to do nothing till they have heard from Great Britain.

Baron StÜrmer was a wiser man, and he recommended the Porte to seek some means of acceding to the entreaties of Mehemet Ali without compromising the dignity of the Sultan^[114]. Baron KÖnigsmark and M. Titow declined giving an opinion till they received further instructions^[115].

On the 29th of March Rechid Pacha and Ahmed Fethi Pachi were displaced, and succeeded by Rifat Bey, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Tahir Pacha, as Capudan Pacha.

On the 31st March Prince Metternich, seeing no end to this question, instructed Baron StÜrmer to inform the Divan, that if they did not adopt the modifications to the Firman recommended by the Conference of London, the Emperor of Austria would withdraw altogether from the alliance. Prince Metternich writes most strongly; he observes, “The contents of your despatch of the 17th of March attract our most serious attention, because they prove the existence of a position without precedent in the annals of diplomacy. What, for example, has been the result of the very precise instructions of the 30th of January? What attention have the Divan, and the agents of the Four Courts, paid to the opinion expressed in that document? On the one hand we see the Porte undecided as to the course which it will have to take on the subject of the representations of Mehemet Ali against certain articles of the Firman; and on the other, the Representatives of the Four Powers ignorant how to counsel from the very clear words of the Collective Note above mentioned; in truth, M. le Baron, it is impossible to make it out.” This is pretty strong language, which he follows up by saying, “The instructions I sent you on the 26th of March have replied, by anticipation, to your scruples, and I flatter myself you will have considered those instructions as anticipating the orders which each of you have applied for, and not have hesitated to offer the advice they contain.

“Nevertheless, as in the course of this affair we have already been exposed to see ourselves deceived in our expectations, I now direct you to invite your colleagues to a conference, and acquaint them that the Emperor enjoins you to insist on the Divan admitting the modifications which the other Courts desire, for the interest even of the Porte, to see introduced into certain articles of the Firman. And should your colleagues decline doing so, you are to take the step prescribed, either alone or with those who will join you; and should the Porte refuse to listen, the Emperor will consider himself as restored to entire liberty of position and action^[116].”

Lord Palmerston writes under date of the 10th of April^[117]; that he conceives his former despatches and the Collective Notes are sufficient to guide Lord Ponsonby in the advice he shall give, and that it is important the dispute between the Porte and Mehemet Ali should be settled as soon as possible, and that the Government do not think the objection stated by the Ambassador, “that it would not be proper for the Sultan to negotiate with Mehemet Ali,” ought to weigh against the extreme urgency of coming to a final settlement, and that no settlement can be made without a direct communication. “On some points,” his Lordship adds, “Mehemet Ali has reason on his side, in others he is clearly and decidedly wrong.” The Sultan ought, therefore, without delay, to modify the Firman in the objectionable parts, and explain that other parts cannot be altered without a departure from the terms of the Treaty of the 15th of July.

Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Ponsonby more peremptorily on the 21st of April, inclosing a copy of Prince Metternich’s letter to Baron StÜrmer, and acquainting his Lordship that Her Majesty’s Government concur in the view taken of the matter by the Austrian Government, and are prepared to take the same course^[118].

M. Guizot in a conversation with Mr. Bulwer at Paris, took the same view of the 1st, 3rd, and 6th articles of the Firman I had done, and admitted he disapproved of some of Mehemet Ali’s pretensions, and had taken care to tell him so; and that the only way to settle the dispute was by the Allies pressing the Porte on one side, and France pressing Mehemet Ali on the other^[119].

On the 27th of April, Chekib Effendi, the Ottoman Minister in London, submitted to Lord Palmerston a new plan^[121], which was little better than the first: the Porte offered to confer the Government of Egypt, after the death of Mehemet Ali, either on Ibrahim Pacha or any other son that Mehemet Ali might select, on condition that afterwards, the right of selection should devolve on the Porte; if that was not approved of, it was proposed that one of his descendants should be chosen by the members of his family and by the chief people of the country, and proposed to the Sublime Porte, which choice should be confirmed, and the person nominated by the Sultan; the other articles remained the same. Who could have put this wild scheme into the heads of the Divan, it is not easy to conceive; this plan would certainly have settled the succession on Ibrahim Pacha, but on failure it would have given rise to intrigues without measure, and also have put the dignity of the Porte in a worse position than at once fixing the hereditary succession in the family of Mehemet Ali as he wished. The Plenipotentiaries met in London on the 10th of May, and very adroitly passed over the new proposition of Chekib, and repeated their opinion that the succession should go in the right line, from father to son. As to the tribute, they recommended that it should be fixed at a stated sum, subject to revision at certain periods, and they conceived that the difficulty which had arisen relative to promotion, could only be considered as of secondary importance. They finish by saying that they persist in their views communicated to the Porte in the Collective Notes of the 30th of January, 13th of March, and by the Protocol of the 5th of March^[120], and that they look upon the submission formally made by Mehemet Ali as absolute, and in consequence the Turco-Egyptian question terminated^[122].