conclude, upon his own responsibility, an agreement with Mehemet Ali. In this unauthorized convention, which was signed on November 27, it was stipulated that the Pasha should surrender the Turkish fleet and evacuate Syria, on the understanding that the four Powers in return would guarantee to him the hereditary tenure of the Pashalic of Egypt.[667] Napier, who was a strong Radical, appears to have been privately urged by certain members of the Cabinet to seize the first opportunity of concluding a peace with Mehemet Ali.[668] But, whatever his reasons may have been for acting in so irregular a manner, the main provisions of his treaty, unquestionably, accorded with the instructions sent to Stopford on November 14. Palmerston, in consequence, decided to signify his approval of the arrangement, with one important reservation.[669] Under no circumstances "could Great Britain singly, or the four Powers jointly, guarantee to a subject a grant of administrative authority made to him by his Sovereign, within the dominions of that Sovereign." But at Constantinople Napier's proceedings aroused the greatest indignation, and the Sublime Porte, with the full concurrence of the ambassadors of the Powers, pronounced the convention null and void.[670] The same course was adopted by Stopford, who sent Captain Fanshawe, his flag captain, to Alexandria to declare that the convention of November 27 could not be ratified, and that Mehemet Ali must submit unconditionally to the terms which the Powers were prepared to offer to him.[671]