The conduct of Lord Ponsonby, it must be admitted, suggested that his chief had no great wish to discover a peaceful solution of the Egyptian question. When the news arrived at Constantinople that Mehemet Ali had refused to accept the _firman_, he at once advised the Porte to hold no further communication with him. The Sublime Porte, he declared, need no longer fear the military power of Mehemet Ali. "His destruction might be the consequence[701] of his again venturing to defy the Sultan." The patience with which Lord Palmerston submitted to Ponsonby's deviations from his instructions is undeniably suspicious. It is practically certain, however, that no secret understanding existed between them. Palmerston's personal views with regard to Mehemet Ali accorded so completely with those of his agent, that he was induced to regard with a lenient eye his reluctance to carry out a distasteful task. But, whilst treating him with great forbearance, he never allowed Lord Ponsonby to impose his opinions upon him. On January 26, 1841, in a despatch endorsed by Queen Victoria with the significant words "highly approved,"[702] he told him plainly that his counsels to the Porte were not in harmony with his instructions. Again, on March 16, he prescribed the necessity of overcoming the obstacles to a settlement so emphatically, that Ponsonby wrote in reply, that he perceived that "the end which he was expected to attain was the arrangement of this affair with Mehemet Ali at any rate" (_sic_).[703] Nor can it reasonably be contended that his tone changed after the Pasha's refusal to accept the conditions of the _firman_ of investiture. On the contrary, in his instructions of April 10, he laid stress upon the necessity of adjusting the points in dispute with as little delay as possible, and absolutely dissented from Ponsonby's view that the Sultan should hold no direct communication with Mehemet Ali.[704]