The Porte, though they expressed their satisfaction with the plan proposed by the Representatives of the Four Powers, were extremely slow in following it out, and the British Ambassador, who seemed now to be disciplined into obedience by Prince Metternich and Lord Palmerston’s peremptory instructions, on the 12th of May directed his dragoman to tell Rifat Pacha that if any further delay took place, he should feel it necessary to call upon his colleagues to support him in inquiring of the Sublime Porte the cause of the delay[[129]]. This letter quickened the motions of the Divan; and on the 22nd of May the new Firman was laid before the Allied Ministers, and approved of by them[[130]]. This Firman complied with Mehemet Ali’s demands; it left Constantinople on the 2nd of June, arrived at Alexandria on the 7th, was accepted by Mehemet Ali, and was publicly read on the 10th[[131]].
Thus terminated this long protracted question, which might have been as easily settled after the signing of my Convention on the 28th November, 1840, as it was on the 10th June, 1841, and without at all compromising the honour or dignity of the Porte, who the reader has seen was, through the rejection of my arrangement, obliged to make concession to a conquered vassal. Who was the principal adviser of the Sultan the reader will be able to judge by what I have stated; and if that is not sufficiently satisfactory, he may turn over the Levant Correspondence, where he will find that the British Ambassador, even at the eleventh hour, lent a willing ear to every report which designing people were too happy to make to him, prejudicial to Mehemet Ali.
CHAPTER XXII.
Review of the Turco-Egyptian Question—Mehemet Ali not the Aggressor—Hostile Preparations of the Porte—Representations of the Allied Powers—What Interests affected by the Independence of Mehemet Ali—Views of France—Designs of Russia.
The Syrian and Egyptian question being now brought to a close, by the total evacuation of the former country, and Mehemet Ali’s establishment in the hereditary pachalic of Egypt almost on his own terms, it is time to inquire what has been gained by measures that had well nigh plunged Europe into a war, the end of which no man could have foreseen.
I think every impartial man who has read the correspondence must allow that Mehemet Ali was not the aggressor. It is quite true he was anxious to be independent, and no wonder that a man who had acquired such extensive possessions by the sword should be desirous of emancipating himself from a weak master. I am not going to justify Mehemet Ali’s first invasion of Syria: that would have been the time for the Allies to have discouraged him, and a naval force sent off Acre would have been quite sufficient to have put an end to his ambitious designs; but nothing of the sort was done. Mehemet Ali was allowed to follow up one victory after another, till his road to Constantinople was open, and the Turks, having been refused assistance by their friends, called in the Russians to protect them; and the Treaty of Kutayah settled for that time the Eastern question.
The Allied Powers, on learning that preparations were making for war at Constantinople, instructed their Ambassadors to urge the Porte to preserve peace. At the same time Russia took the initiative, and instructed her Consul to desire Mehemet Ali to recall Ibrahim, and to withdraw the Egyptian army to Damascus. What right had Russia, after consenting to the Treaty of Kutayah, to make such a proposal? Would it not have been safer and wiser, had the Allied Powers preserved the status quo, or even persuaded the Porte to acknowledge Mehemet Ali at once, and confer on him the government of the countries he had conquered, stipulating at the same time that he should establish a milder government in his extensive possessions? It had been proved that Turkey, weak as she was, was entirely incapable of governing her distant provinces; and would it not have been better to have given her a powerful ally who would have been interested in protecting her against her natural enemy, Russia, than curtailing his power, by restoring provinces which she had not been able to govern, and at best giving her a discontented vassal? It may be argued that such a proceeding would have been dismembering the Turkish empire: I answer, that was already done by the Treaty of Kutayah, and it would have been much safer to have let things alone.
Candia, which was entirely separate both from Egypt and Syria, might have been restored to the Porte; this would have given her more real strength than she is ever likely to receive from her very imperfect possession of Syria.
Let us now examine whose interests would have been affected by giving Mehemet Ali independence. No power in Europe is so much interested in keeping well with Mehemet Ali as Great Britain, and no power is more aware of that than France; for in the very first conversation Count Molé had with Lord Granville[[132]] he alluded to the subject, and the French Government have never let slip an opportunity of doing acts of kindness to Mehemet Ali, so as to keep him as much out of our hands as possible, and I fear they have too well succeeded. France had opened a considerable trade with Egypt, and she entertained great fears that English enterprise would supplant her; no wonder, then, that she should have befriended the Pacha in every possible way. France is as well aware as we are, that steam navigation having got to such perfection, Egypt has become almost necessary to England as the half-way house to India, and indeed ought to be an English colony. Now if we wished to weaken Mehemet Ali, with a view, in the event of the breakup of the Turkish empire, which is not far distant, to have seized Egypt as our share of the spoil, we were perfectly right in our policy; or even, had we not looked so far ahead, it might, perhaps, have been politic to have confined Mehemet Ali to Egypt, so that in the event of his stopping the road to India by Suez, we might have the road of the Euphrates open, one remaining in the possession of the Ottoman empire, and the other in that of the Pacha of Egypt. It is not, however, usual for a Government to quarrel with their own interests, and it is so decidedly the advantage of the Pacha of Egypt to facilitate, by every possible means, the passage across the Isthmus of Suez, that on the whole I believe the soundest policy of Great Britain would have been to have supported Mehemet Ali, and I have not the smallest doubt that when France saw we were committed against him, she seized that opportunity of quitting the alliance in order to make the Pacha her firm friend.
France, however, though she had all the desire to protect the Pacha, even at the risk of war, with match lighted ready to put to the gun, hesitated, and, fortunately for Europe at large, Louis Philippe had either not nerve to begin the strife, or being desirous of preserving peace, refused to adopt M. Thiers’ plan of sending the French fleet to Alexandria. The Ministers resigned, and Europe was saved from a general conflagration.