“I hasten to acquaint you, that in consequence of what I have received from my Government by the messenger who has just arrived here, I have instructed my Dragoman to inform his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that the British Government advises the Sublime Porte to grant to Mehemet Ali the hereditary government of Egypt.
| “I have, &c., (Signed) “Ponsonby.” |
“To M. Titow.“
“Sir,
“Therapia, Jan. 10, 1841.
“You will acquaint his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that I am ordered to counsel the Sublime Porte, in the name of the British Government, to grant to Mehemet Ali the hereditary government of Egypt.
| “I have, &c., (Signed) “Ponsonby.” |
“To M. Frederick Pisani.”
Lord Palmerston, in a short letter of February 10[[97]], approves of the Ambassador’s conduct, without stating whether it was the long correspondence to endeavour to induce the Allied Ministers not to recommend the grant of the hereditary tenure, or the short correspondence recommending the grant to be confirmed.
Notwithstanding that Lord Ponsonby had been foiled in his first attempt to prevent the Porte from conferring the hereditary pachalic on Mehemet Ali, he was not discouraged, and returned to the charge with fresh vigour, on the question of attaching such conditions to the hereditary title, as would render it worse than useless; and I have shown that on reflection, the Allied Ministers altered their opinion, and Lord Ponsonby in consequence withdrew his proposal.