“I hasten to reply to the despatch which your Excellency has done me the honour to address to me under date of the 27th November (9th Dec.), and the arrival of which was almost immediately preceded by that of the reports which you entrusted to the Marquis of Clanricarde. Before entering further into detail upon the principal subject of that despatch, my first desire, M. le Baron, is to communicate to you the lively satisfaction with which the Emperor received the happy intelligence of the submission of Mehemet Ali. The Treaty of London has at last been executed in spite of all opposition. It has been so to its fullest extent, and that without having cost the Powers who were parties to it any compromise, or any concession to be regretted. There is nothing, even including the armed demonstration with which the British squadron accompanied its summons at Alexandria, which has not stamped its result with a character still more favourable to the consideration of the alliance. Have the goodness, M. le Baron, to offer our sincere congratulations to Lord Palmerston upon this result, which we consider as a common triumph of his and of our policy.
“The Eastern Question thus settled, it now remains to record and confirm the solution thereof by a final transaction in which France should concur. You have already, in anticipation of this event, been put in possession of the views and intentions which our august Master entertains upon this subject. Much more will the Emperor be disposed to accede to the plan which Lord Palmerston has proposed to you, because it simplifies still further the transaction which is to be concluded. His Majesty, then, could not but approve the motive which leads Lord Palmerston to desire that the details of the special arrangement, by virtue of which the Sultan shall grant to Mehemet Ali the investiture of Egypt, should not be embodied in the text of the agreement. Accordingly, M. le Baron, if the bases of the proposed agreement should be such as have been stated to you by the Principal Secretary of State, and if the French Government should decide upon accepting it, the Emperor would authorize you to concur in it.”
The Count also wrote as follows, under date of 4th January, 1841, to M. Titow, at Constantinople[[13]]:—
“I lost no time in laying before the Emperor your despatch of the 28th of November, in which you reported to us the late events which have taken place at Alexandria, as well as the determination of the Porte to refuse its sanction to the arrangement concluded by Commodore Napier.
“It certainly belongs to his Highness alone to determine finally the extent of the sacrifices which it is expedient for him to make, in order to secure the pacification of his empire, and that Sovereign ought not to doubt that the Emperor desires sincerely that that pacification may be effected upon conditions as little unfavourable as possible to the Porte.
“But, the more our august Master has at heart the defence of the interests of the Sultan, the more would His Imperial Majesty consider himself as failing in the friendship which he bears to his Highness, if he did not seriously recommend him, at this decisive moment, to consider with calmness and moderation the present posture of affairs, and to be on his guard against illusions and hopes which in the end may never be realized.
“But a few months since, even at the period of the signature of the Convention of July 15, the Porte could not have hoped in so short a time to have reduced Mehemet Ali to the powerless state to which he is now reduced; and it is hardly to be doubted, that it would a little while ago have granted to him the hereditary succession, if it had been possible for it by that means to hasten a definitive arrangement, in the interests of general peace.
“The military operations of the Allies in Syria have, since, been crowned with the most decided success. Nevertheless, when the Porte in a moment of irritation, determined to pronounce the deprivation of Mehemet Ali, the Powers did not hesitate to declare their opinion upon the subject, and to make known the conditions upon which it appeared to them that the Sultan should not hesitate to reinstate the Pacha in the hereditary administration of Egypt.
“It is certainly true that the Porte has never hitherto received an official communication of the advice which the Allied Powers thought it their duty to tender to it, but the Porte is perfectly aware of the nature and tendency of the instructions of the 15th of October, which have acquired European publicity; it is equally acquainted with the measures determined upon on the 14th of November in London, and with the step which Sir Robert Stopford was instructed to take, and the only object of which was to secure the execution of the preceding instructions.
“It would now be impossible for the Four Allied Powers to retract their former declarations. Already the British Cabinet has not hesitated an instant to declare itself in favour of the advantages which result from the cessation of hostilities between the Porte and Mehemet Ali; but while it fully appreciates the object which Commodore Napier had in view, in undertaking upon his own responsibility to hasten the submission of the Pacha; while it fully approves of all the conditions which that officer has imposed upon him; the Cabinet of London has not thought fit to take upon itself a formal guarantee with respect to the right of hereditary succession which the Sultan might confer upon Mehemet Ali.