Palmerston reluctantly decided to agree to the Austrian proposal and, on May 8, officially informed Guizot that the British government adhered to it. But this concession only served to strengthen Thiers' belief that the Powers would before long adopt his views completely. Chekib-Effendi had not yet arrived, and there was, therefore, no necessity for returning an immediate answer. Even when the Turkish plenipotentiary reached London, Palmerston appeared to be in no hurry to resume the negotiations. On the other hand, Guizot was inclined to think that the representatives of the other Powers were growing restless. Even Brunnow seemed disposed to adopt a more conciliatory attitude, and there appeared to be a growing feeling that no settlement could be concluded without the assent of France. Thiers' answer to the Austrian plan of partitioning Syria could not, however, be indefinitely postponed, and, on June 16, he directed Guizot to tell Lord Palmerston that he could not entertain it. "We could not," he wrote, "suggest it to Mehemet Ali; he would refuse it, and we could not refute his arguments which we should ourselves consider to be sound and well founded." He was greatly struck by the account which Guizot had sent him of Brunnow's attitude, "which could only be ascribed to disasters in Circassia. It was clear that Russia was not ready to embark upon serious operations elsewhere."[551] When Thiers thus declined to consider the Austrian proposal, he believed that his hopes of bringing about secretly a direct arrangement between the Sultan and the Pasha were about to be realized. Mehemet Ali had been unable wholly to conceal his disappointment on learning of the _collective note of July_ 27, 1839. When it was officially communicated to him by the consuls of the Powers, he declared firmly that there could be no peace until the hereditary tenure of Syria should be conferred upon him and until his enemy Hosrew Pasha, the Grand Vizier, should be dismissed from office.[552] Since then, he had sometimes angrily asserted that he would wait no longer and that he should order Ibrahim to march upon Constantinople, whilst, on other occasions, he had shown a disposition to adopt a more conciliatory attitude. Throughout the winter and the spring he pressed on his military preparations. Some of these, however, proved very unsuccessful--an attempt to form a national guard in Egypt itself breaking down completely.[553] At the same time he appears to have experienced great difficulty in keeping Ibrahim's army in Syria supplied with money, food, and clothing,[554] whilst, to add to his embarrassments, in the spring, the Druses and other tribes began to display renewed symptoms of disaffection.[555] Palmerston, now that he no longer feared the separate intervention of Russia, would probably have been well pleased could the Pasha have been provoked into some act of aggression against the Sultan. But he