“Nevertheless, as in the course of this affair we have already been exposed to see ourselves deceived in our expectations, I now direct you to invite your colleagues to a conference, and acquaint them that the Emperor enjoins you to insist on the Divan admitting the modifications which the other Courts desire, for the interest even of the Porte, to see introduced into certain articles of the Firman. And should your colleagues decline doing so, you are to take the step prescribed, either alone or with those who will join you; and should the Porte refuse to listen, the Emperor will consider himself as restored to entire liberty of position and action[[116]].”
Lord Palmerston writes under date of the 10th of April[[117]]; that he conceives his former despatches and the Collective Notes are sufficient to guide Lord Ponsonby in the advice he shall give, and that it is important the dispute between the Porte and Mehemet Ali should be settled as soon as possible, and that the Government do not think the objection stated by the Ambassador, “that it would not be proper for the Sultan to negotiate with Mehemet Ali,” ought to weigh against the extreme urgency of coming to a final settlement, and that no settlement can be made without a direct communication. “On some points,” his Lordship adds, “Mehemet Ali has reason on his side, in others he is clearly and decidedly wrong.” The Sultan ought, therefore, without delay, to modify the Firman in the objectionable parts, and explain that other parts cannot be altered without a departure from the terms of the Treaty of the 15th of July.
Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Ponsonby more peremptorily on the 21st of April, inclosing a copy of Prince Metternich’s letter to Baron Stürmer, and acquainting his Lordship that Her Majesty’s Government concur in the view taken of the matter by the Austrian Government, and are prepared to take the same course[[118]].
M. Guizot in a conversation with Mr. Bulwer at Paris, took the same view of the 1st, 3rd, and 6th articles of the Firman I had done, and admitted he disapproved of some of Mehemet Ali’s pretensions, and had taken care to tell him so; and that the only way to settle the dispute was by the Allies pressing the Porte on one side, and France pressing Mehemet Ali on the other[[119]].
On the 27th of April, Chekib Effendi, the Ottoman Minister in London, submitted to Lord Palmerston a new plan[[121]], which was little better than the first: the Porte offered to confer the Government of Egypt, after the death of Mehemet Ali, either on Ibrahim Pacha or any other son that Mehemet Ali might select, on condition that afterwards, the right of selection should devolve on the Porte; if that was not approved of, it was proposed that one of his descendants should be chosen by the members of his family and by the chief people of the country, and proposed to the Sublime Porte, which choice should be confirmed, and the person nominated by the Sultan; the other articles remained the same. Who could have put this wild scheme into the heads of the Divan, it is not easy to conceive; this plan would certainly have settled the succession on Ibrahim Pacha, but on failure it would have given rise to intrigues without measure, and also have put the dignity of the Porte in a worse position than at once fixing the hereditary succession in the family of Mehemet Ali as he wished. The Plenipotentiaries met in London on the 10th of May, and very adroitly passed over the new proposition of Chekib, and repeated their opinion that the succession should go in the right line, from father to son. As to the tribute, they recommended that it should be fixed at a stated sum, subject to revision at certain periods, and they conceived that the difficulty which had arisen relative to promotion, could only be considered as of secondary importance. They finish by saying that they persist in their views communicated to the Porte in the Collective Notes of the 30th of January, 13th of March, and by the Protocol of the 5th of March[[120]], and that they look upon the submission formally made by Mehemet Ali as absolute, and in consequence the Turco-Egyptian question terminated[[122]].
CHAPTER XX.
Colonel Napier’s Account of his Missions to Egypt—Seizure of the Maronite and Druse Emirs and Sheikhs—Their Condition in Egypt—Their Return to Syria—False Assertions of the French—Mission for the Liberation of the Syrian Soldiers—Difficulty of ascertaining their Number—Bad Faith of the Pacha—Infamous Proposal of a Turkish Officer—Sudden termination of the Negotiation—Suspicious conduct of the Egyptians—Liberation of the Syrians.
I have already mentioned that on my way down the river from Cairo, in February, 1841, I met Colonel Napier. He had been dispatched from Syria by Colonel Bridgeman, with orders to bring back the Scheiks and Emirs for whose restoration to liberty I had stipulated in my correspondence with Boghos Bey[[123]]. The Colonel’s own account of this mission, and of a subsequent one in which he was employed by the Foreign Office to procure the release of the Syrian troops carried into Egypt, is as follows:—
“Shortly before the allied forces landed in Syria, several of the most influential Maronite and Druse chieftains[[124]] of Mount Lebanon being seized by Ibrahim Pacha, were, together with a great number of their servants and dependants, embarked on board an Egyptian vessel at Acre. On arriving at Alexandria, these unfortunate people, after being loaded with chains, and subjected to every species of indignity, were sent up the Nile to the remote regions of Sennaar, there to work at the Pacha’s recently discovered gold mines.
“One of Commodore Napier’s stipulations with Boghos Bey being the emancipation of these mountain chiefs[[125]], after the evacuation of Syria by the Egyptians I was sent by Colonel Bridgeman, then in command of the British troops, to accompany these Emirs and Scheiks back to their own country.