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.”