Examination of the Conduct of the Allied Ministers at Constantinople—Lord Ponsonby’s Propositions regarding the Hereditary Government of Egypt—ApprovedApproved by the other Allied Ministers, but on consideration rejected by them—Lord Palmerston’s Conversation with the Turkish Minister—Note of the Four Powers in favour of the Hereditary Tenure.

It is now proper to examine a little into the conduct of the Allied Ministers at Constantinople, who, of course, had some influence over the Porte, and exercised it, in framing the Hatti Sheriff reinstating Mehemet Ali in the government of Egypt; and I shall take the Levant Correspondence to guide me in my criticism; for although a great deal of that is no doubt suppressed, there still remains enough to form an opinion on the wisdom of the Allied Ministers.

I shall take the British Ambassador in hand first, as he had more influence, and took a more prominent part than the Ambassadors and Ministers of the other powers.

After the news of the surrender of the Turkish fleet arrived at Constantinople, Lord Ponsonby wrote to the Internuncio and to M. Titow^[81], recommending conditions which should be attached to the grant of the hereditary pachalic of Egypt to Mehemet Ali, which they approved of in the first instance, but on reconsideration, they, like wise men, rejected.

Lord Ponsonby, in his letter to Lord Palmerston^[82], states, that he will follow his Lordship’s instructions of the 17th of December, and do all he can to secure the Sultan against the evil designs of Mehemet Ali, and preserve the people of Egypt in future from the oppression which they have hitherto endured. “I am convinced there is no way of doing both, so certain, as that which your Lordship says you wish would be taken, viz.: taking the collection of the revenue out of the hands of the Pacha.” I see nothing of the sort in Lord Palmerston’s letter; he gives an opinion that the Porte will be able to make certain regulations for the government of Egypt, but not one word is said about the collection of the revenue; and surely it was not statesmanlike of Lord Ponsonby advising the Porte to impose conditions on Mehemet Ali which they had no power of enforcing, for Lord Ponsonby knew full well that neither England, or the other Powers, could touch Egypt, without provoking a war with France. He says, “The Austrians desire to put a sudden end (as they suppose they can do) to the question here, by yielding every thing to the Pacha. Your Lordship desires to establish future security both for the Sultan and his Egyptian subjects. My duty is to follow your orders; but could I be shaken in that duty by the exertions of the Austrians, I should be still deterred from acting with them for such a purpose, by my own knowledge that all this question is to be most rigidly scrutinized in Parliament, and that severe censure would fall upon me if I deviated from your instructions^[83].”

I do indeed hope that Parliament will scrutinize his conduct, and ascertain whether or not it is true that the Ambassador instructed General Jochmus to follow up hostilities after the submission of Mehemet Ali^[84], and thereby cause the death of some thousands of human beings, which was just as bad, if not worse than the chase of the negroes in Nubia, of which Lord Ponsonby speaks with such horror^[85]. The only difference between the two is, that the chase of the negroes was the custom of the country, whereas the chase of the Egyptians from Syria was not according to the custom of civilized nations, as it was carried on after the submission of Mehemet Ali, and when there was not the least necessity for it.

The British Ambassador, in writing to Baron StÜrmer and M. Titow, quotes the 3rd, 5th, and 6th Articles of the Treaty of the 15th of July^[86], and makes a budget for the Pacha, showing the resources of Egypt in the year 1833^[87] to be 62,778,750 piastres, while the expenditure was only 49,951,500, which may have been correct or not; but it appears to me that the tribute Mehemet was to pay to the Porte on his being reinstated in the government of Egypt, ought to have been fixed by the state of the revenue and expenditure in 1841, when the war ceased.

The proposition his Excellency makes is, that the Sultan should issue a firman, giving the hereditary government of Egypt to Mehemet Ali; but he is to bear in mind that Egypt was just to be considered like any other pachalic of the Turkish empire, and at a future time he should be made acquainted with the nature and extent of his administrative powers^[88].

All this would have been very well had the power of the Porte alone put down Mehemet Ali, and then had the means of enforcing the firman; but the Ambassador must have known full well, that had Mehemet Ali been left to himself, he could have dictated terms to the Sultan, and that, even after all the losses he met with in Syria, occasioned by the Allied Powers, and the losses he met with in his retreat by the bad faith of the Turks, he was still in a position to resist the whole power of the Turkish empire.

M. Titow, as well as Baron StÜrmer and Count KÖnigsmark, as I have before stated, at first agreed with Lord Ponsonby^[89], but asked his opinion about the restrictive clause relating to the nomination of the successor of Mehemet Ali. Their approval of the British Ambassador’s proposal seems to have thrown his Excellency off his guard, and he wrote to M. Titow:

“I reply at once to your question, and I say that I think it will be more prudent to keep everything like specific arrangement for the settlement that will flow from the assertion and establishment of the Sultan’s sovereign authority and right. You will observe that I used the expression, ‘hereditary in the family of Mehemet Ali,’ which cannot tie up the Sultan’s right to specify the mode in which the succession shall take place; and if it should be argued hereafter that the succession should be in the direct line, (and, as it is called, by representation,) the answer would be easy, that nothing of the sort is known to Turkish law, nor is usual in the East, succession being commonly regulated by very different principles.

“I do not see any inconvenience in leaving this matter untouched, but I do fear that any thing that might give Mehemet Ali ground for discussion and dispute at this moment might be inconvenient, and would be seized upon by him. He cannot deny the Sultan’s sovereignty, which he has already admitted; it will be impossible for him to refuse the hereditary right, as it is expressed, without denying, at the same time, the sovereignty of the Sultan already acknowledged.”

The alteration of the opinion of the Allied Ministers only appears in Lord Ponsonby’s letter to Baron StÜrmer two days after, in which he withdraws his proposal^[90]. He, however, alludes to a letter from Baron StÜrmer, communicating this change of opinion, in which the Baron asks, “Have we any right to act according to our fancies, when the route we have to pursue is clearly traced to us?”

To which Lord Ponsonby replies, “Certainly not; and in conformity with your just notions, I will continue to act, without the smallest deviation, upon the instructions of December 17, which have already been made known to you, but which, to avoid error, I transcribe literatim from the document.

“‘It will indeed be necessary, that in reinstating Mehemet Ali in the Pachalic of Egypt, care should be taken to make such arrangements as would protect the people of Egypt from a continuance of the tyrannical oppression by which they have of late years been crushed, and should secure the Sultan against a renewal of those hostilities which have compelled him to have recourse to the aid of his Allies. But the means of effecting all these purposes may be found in the stipulations of the Treaty of the 15th of July, without removing Mehemet Ali from his Pachalic. The Treaty says, that all the laws of the Turkish Empire, and all the Treaties of the Porte, shall apply to Egypt, just as much as to any other province of the Sultan’s dominions; and the land and sea forces which may be maintained by the Pacha of Egypt, shall be part of the forces of the empire, and be kept up for the service of the State.

“‘Under these stipulations, the Sultan will of course be able, by an exercise of his legislative authority, to establish unity of flag, and of military and naval uniform, throughout all his provinces; to limit the number of troops which each province shall, according to its population, maintain; to regulate the mode of enforcing the conscription, so as to protect the people from undue burthens and oppressive levies; to fix the number and class of ships of war which shall belong to the several naval ports of his dominions; to fix the manner in which commissions in the army and navy shall be granted in his name, and by his authority; to determine that a single monetary system shall prevail throughout all his dominions, and that there shall be but one Mint. The Treaty specifies, that none but the legal imposts should be levied in Egypt, which will secure the people from undue exactions; and the execution of the Convention of 1838, by which all monopolies are to be abolished, will at once free the industry of the people of Egypt from those oppressive restrictions which have hitherto kept the great mass of the population in the most abject poverty, and which have gradually thrown out of cultivation extensive tracts of land that were formerly tilled and productive.

“‘By such means it seems to Her Majesty’s Government, that future security might be afforded, both to the Sultan and to his Egyptian subjects, against the disposition of Mehemet Ali to rebel against his Sovereign, and to oppress the people of the province he would have to govern.’

“The above constitute the sole rule I can follow, and they are the only words I am at liberty to use in the counsel I shall consent to give to the Sublime Porte.”

The reader will observe these instructions were merely general, and ought to have been followed only so far as the Porte had the power of enforcing them; besides, at the time they were given, Lord Palmerston was not aware what force Mehemet Ali had in Egypt; and there is not a word in these instructions to lead Lord Ponsonby to suppose that Lord Palmerston would have recommended the Porte to set aside Ibrahim Pacha, which was evidently Lord Ponsonby’s aim.

His Lordship finishes his letter to the Baron by observing, that as Mehemet Ali had rejected the Treaty of the 15th of July, the Allies are free to act as they think proper. However free they might have been, they always declared they should abide by the basis of the Treaty of the 15th of July, which was acknowledged by my Convention, and also by the instructions of the 15th of October, which Lord Palmerston quotes in his despatch of the 17th of December,—that despatch which the British Ambassador takes for the guide of conduct, viz.: “Your Excellency and your colleagues will, of course, have given to the Porte the advice specified in my despatch of the 15th of October to your Excellency:” and again, “In fact these articles of agreement were substantially a complete surrender on the part of Mehemet Ali, and he was led to suppose, that in asking for hereditary tenure, he was only asking that which the Porte was willing to give^[91].”

Lord Palmerston writes still more strongly to the Ambassador, under date of the 29th January^[92], in which, relating a conversation he had had with the Turkish Minister in London, he says, in reply to the unwillingness of the Porte to grant the hereditary pachalic communicated to him by Chekib Effendi, “I said, that in all affairs, one must be content with what is practicable, and not endanger what has been obtained by striving after that which is unattainable. I said, that it is clear that Mehemet Ali has made his submission in the expectation that he should obtain hereditary tenure in Egypt: now if, after all, this tenure were to be refused to him, what would probably be the consequence?—renewed revolt, or an attitude, at least, of passive resistance. What would then be the remedy? Such a state of things could not be allowed to continue, because if it lasted, it would amount to the separation of Egypt from the Turkish Empire. But the Sultan, has not, at present, naval or military means sufficient to enforce his authority, in such a case, over Mehemet Ali in Egypt. The Sultan, would, therefore, be obliged to have recourse for aid to his Allies. But the measures hitherto agreed upon by the Four Powers in virtue of the Treaty of July, are confined to the expulsion of the Egyptians from Syria, Arabia, and Candia, and to the driving of Mehemet Ali’s forces and authorities back within the limits of Egypt. If, then, the Sultan were to apply to the Four Powers for assistance to attack Mehemet Ali in Egypt itself, a new deliberation of the Conference would become necessary.

“Now, I said to Chekib, I could tell him beforehand what would be the result of that deliberation, if the assistance asked for by the Sultan were required in consequence of the Sultan’s refusal to comply with the advice given him by the Four Powers, to confer upon Mehemet Ali hereditary tenure of his Egyptian pachalic. I said I knew perfectly well that the Four Powers would decline giving the Sultan such assistance; and what then would happen? Why, the Sultan would, in consequence, find himself, for want of sufficient means of his own, obliged to grant to Mehemet Ali, with a bad grace, and after an ineffectual attempt to avoid doing so, that which he might now make a merit of conferring willingly; and thus, instead of performing, as he now may do, an act of sovereign power, at the suggestion of his Allies, he would appear to all the world as making an extorted concession to a subject.

“I said that I would not attempt to represent as being of no value or importance a sacrifice which is unquestionably a great one, because such a representation could not convince the Sultan. But I begged Chekib Effendi to request his Government to consider the immense importance of the moral and physical strength which the Sultan has gained by the events of the few last months, and to remember that all which the Sultan has gained, Mehemet Ali has lost. That thus their relative positions have been so entirely changed, that the Pacha can never again become really dangerous or seriously troublesome to the Sultan, if the Sultan avails himself properly of the stipulations of the Treaty of July; and if he shall well organize his army, navy, and finances, and shall place those branches of his public service upon an efficient footing. I desired Chekib Effendi to bear in mind that the Sultan has recovered, for his direct authority, the whole of Syria, Arabia, and Candia; points which, with reference to military, naval, financial, and religious considerations, are of the utmost importance, and for the recovery of which the Sultan would, at this time last year, have gladly made very considerable sacrifices. I further reminded him, that a faithful execution of that stipulation of the Treaty of July, which says, that all the laws and treaties of the empire are to apply to Egypt as to any other province, will afford a most essential security for the sovereign authority of the Sultan. I therefore requested Chekib Effendi to urge his Government to conclude this matter without further delay, because it is of great importance for all parties concerned, that it should be brought to a final settlement as soon as possible.

“Chekib Effendi promised me to write to Rechid Pacha to this effect, and he said that he had no doubt that the Sultan will comply with the advice of his Allies.”

The day after this conversation, and in conformity with Lord Palmerston’s views, the Allied Ministers sent a note to Chekib Effendi, expressing their opinion that the Sultan should confer on the descendants of Mehemet Ali in the direct line, the Pachalic of Egypt^[93].