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.