THE NEW SULTAN
Foreign Office, 19th August 1839.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and in submitting the accompanying private letter from the Earl Granville53 begs to state that neither Viscount Melbourne nor Viscount Palmerston are of opinion that it would be expedient that your Majesty should send an Ambassador Extraordinary to compliment the young Sultan54 on his accession. The circumstances connected with his accession are indeed fitter matter for condolence than for congratulation, and he would probably be better pleased by the restoration of his fleet than by the arrival of Ambassadors Extraordinary. Moreover, it has not been customary for the Sovereign of England to send such missions upon the accession of Sultans.
Footnote 53: The first Earl Granville (1773-1846), formerly Ambassador Extraordinary to the Russian Court, at this time Ambassador at Paris.
Footnote 54: Abdul Medjid, a lad of sixteen, succeeded the Sultan Mahmoud. The majority of the Powers agreed to place him under the protection of Europe, and to warn Mehemet Ali that the matter was for Europe, not him, to decide. France, however, wished to support Mehemet, and direct the Alliance against Russia. But Nicholas I. of Russia was prepared to support England as far as regarded the affairs of Turkey and Egypt, and to close the Dardanelles and Bosphorus to war-ships of all nations, it being stipulated that Russian ships of war only were to pass the Bosphorus, as acting under the mandate of Europe in defence of the Turks. See further, Introductory Notes for [1839] and [1840.]
The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria.
LOUIS PHILIPPE'S VISIT
Ostende, 24th August 1839.
... The King's intention would be to leave Eu in the evening, let us say at eight or nine o'clock, and to land, perhaps at ten or eleven, at Brighton on the following morning. He would have the honour of dining with you, and would re-embark in the evening of the same day, so as to be back on the following morning at Eu. He will therefore, as you see, not sleep in England.
If you cannot give any pied-à-terre in the Palace for these few hours, they will remain in an hotel. But I must say that as the King and Queen put themselves to some inconvenience in coming to see you, it would be rather desirable to offer them rooms in the Palace, which I think might be easily managed. As far as we are concerned, it does not matter if we are housed in an hotel or where we bivouac. I will charge Van de Weyer to take rooms for us somewhere....