“I had the honour last night to receive your communication of a Convention, dated Medea steamer, Alexandria, 27th November, 1840, signed Charles Napier, Commodore, and Boghos Bey.
“I immediately laid that Convention before the Sublime Porte, and acquainted my colleagues, the Austrian Internuncio, the Prussian Envoy, and the Russian Chargé d’Affaires, with it. It is my duty to acquaint you that the Sublime Porte has made a formal protest against your acts, declaring you have no power or authority whatever to justify what you have done, and that the Convention is null and void.
“My colleagues above-mentioned, and myself, entirely concur with the Sublime Porte, and declare that we are ignorant of your having the least right to assume the powers you have exercised; and that we consider the Convention null and void, ab initio.
“It is my duty to call upon you to abstain from every attempt to carry your Convention into execution, in any degree whatever, and to state that you are bound by your duty to Her Majesty, to continue to act with the ships under your command, as you did act before you assumed the right to make the aforesaid Convention, and as you would have acted in conformity with your orders, if that Convention had never been made by you.
“I have sent a copy of this dispatch to Admiral the Hon. Sir Robert Stopford, and also to Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
| “I have, &c., (Signed) “Ponsonby.” |
“To Commodore Napier.”
“My Lord,
“H.M.S. Powerful, Marmorice Bay,
Dec. 14, 1840.