When Napoleon drove the Turks into the sea at Aboukir, among the fugitives was Mohammed Ali, the founder of the present reigning house of Egypt. Little is known of his origin. He was an Albanian, but born at Cavala in Macedonia where he is said to have distinguished himself as a tax collector in his earlier youth. His education was primitive; he was ignorant of history and economics and only learnt the Arabic alphabet late in life. But he was a man of great ability and power and an acute judge of character. He reappears in Egypt in 1801, still obscure, and fights under Abercrombie. When the English withdrew he profited by the internal disturbances and became in 1805 Viceroy of the country under the Sultan of Turkey. His power was consolidated by the disastrous British expedition of 1807—General Frazer’s “reconnoitering” expedition, as it is officially termed. England was hostile to Turkey now, and Frazer was sent to see whether a diversion could be created in Egypt. He landed, like Napoleon before him, at Marabout, but with no more than the following regiments;—the 31st, the 35th, the 78th, and a foreign legion: 4,000 men in all. He occupied Alexandria and Rosetta, but before long Mohammed Ali had killed or captured half his force and he was obliged to ask for terms. They were readily granted. The “reconnoitering” expedition was allowed to reembark, and the only trace it has left of its presence in Alexandria is a tombstone of a soldier of the 78th, in the courtyard of the Greek Patriarchate. For thirty years the power of Mohammed Ali grew, and with it the importance of Alexandria, his virtual capital. He freed the Holy Places of Arabia from a heretical sect, he interfered in Greece, he revolted against his suzerain the Sultan of Turkey, and invading Syria added it to his dominions. A kingdom, comparable in extent to the Ptolemaic, had come into existence with Alexandria as its centre, and it seemed that the dreams of Napoleon would be realised by this Albanian adventurer, and that the English would be cut off from India. England took alarm. And suddenly the empire of Mohammed Ali fell. Syria revolted (1840), supported by a British fleet, and soon the English admiral, Sir Charles Napier, was at Alexandria, and compelled the Viceroy to confine himself to Egypt. According to tradition the interview took place in the new Ras-el-Tin Palace, and Napier exclaims “If Your Highness will not listen to my unofficial appeal to you against the folly of further resistance, it only remains for me to bombard you, and by God I will bombard you and plant my bombs in the middle of this room where you are sitting.” Anyhow Mohammed Ali gave in. He had failed as a European power, but he had secured for his family a comfortable principality in Egypt, where he was king in all but name.