Mehemet Ali's curious experiment in state socialism can be discussed more conveniently later on. Suffice it to say that, unsound as was his economic system, and destined as it was largely to contribute to his ultimate undoing, it, for a time, furnished him with ample funds for the prosecution of his ambitious schemes. By nature he appears to have been rather a kind-hearted than a cruel man. To some extent, without doubt, he was an oppressor of the people, yet at the same time he constantly protected them from the ill-treatment and exactions of his officials. But, although he was too large-minded to find any satisfaction in useless tyranny, when he conceived that reasons of state called for their application, he would resort unhesitatingly to the most ruthless measures.[271] In passing judgment on Mehemet Ali, however, it must always be remembered that he was an altogether illiterate man, who had only taught himself to read in middle life by dint of great perseverance. Nor should it be forgotten that Egypt, when he assumed the supreme control, was in a state of confusion and anarchy almost impossible to realize. It was not loyalty which had prompted Mehemet Ali to assist the Porte to crush the Greek insurrection. In 1822 he had obtained the island of Crete from the Sultan, and the Morea and the pashalics of Syria and Damascus were to have been his rewards in 1825. The intervention of the Powers had deprived him of the Morea, which he had always regarded as one of the gates of Constantinople. After the Russo-Turkish war, however, he felt confident of his ability to take forcible possession of Syria, the eastern avenue of approach to the Imperial city. A quarrel with Abdullah Pasha of Acre furnished him with an excuse for setting his army and his fleet in motion. On November 1, 1831, a force of about 10,000 Egyptians, under Ibrahim, entered Syria and laid siege to the fortress of Saint-Jean d'Acre.