In the meanwhile Akiff-Effendi, the Turkish envoy, sent to treat with Mehemet Ali, had returned to Constantinople, after a fruitless mission to Cairo. The Pasha had protested his loyalty to the young Sultan, but he had none the less received the _Capudan Pasha_ and his officers with open arms and clearly meant to retain the Ottoman fleet. Moreover, he had declared emphatically that he must be invested with the hereditary government of both Syria and Egypt, and had expressed indignation that his old enemy Hosrew Pasha, the Grand Vizier, had not been dismissed. He had, however, undertaken that, for the present, Ibrahim should not advance into Asia Minor.[496] It was clear to the ambassadors at Constantinople that the Porte, if left to itself, would consent to all the Pasha's demands. "I consider the Ottoman Empire to be delivered over to Mehemet Ali," wrote Ponsonby on July 26.[497] But, on the following day, Baron Stürmer received despatches from Vienna.[498] Metternich had either foreseen, or had obtained early information, that the Turkish ministers would make further concessions, and he, accordingly, informed the _Internuncio_ that the five Powers were determined to resist the pretensions of Mehemet Ali, and directed him to urge his colleagues to unite with him in representing to the Porte the necessity of allowing the conditions of peace to be settled by the Powers. Lord Beauvale[499] and M. de Sainte-Aulaire had, it is said, at Metternich's request, written in the same strain to Ponsonby and to Roussin.[500] A meeting of the representatives of the five Powers was immediately convened and a note was drawn up, informing the Porte "that agreement among the five Great Powers, on the question of the East, was secured," and inviting it to suspend any definitive resolution without their concurrence. M. de Boutenieff, the Russian minister, appears to have made no difficulty about affixing his signature to this document, which was to be known as the _collective note of July_ 27, 1839. When it was presented to them, the Turkish ministers expressed the utmost gratitude, and promised to suspend all negotiations and to inform Mehemet Ali that the affair was now in the hands of the five Powers.[501]