It was while Mehemet Ali was organising the national guard of Egypt, and arranging the military training of the workmen employed in his many factories, that the unlucky treaty of July 15, 1840, which gave the whole of Syria to the Sublime Porte, was concluded. Four Western Powers had secretly met in London and agreed to deprive the sovereign of the Nile of his conquests, and fling him again at the foot of the throne, which he had treated as a plaything. Mehemet Ali haughtily protested against the desecration of his rights, and France, his faithful ally, with hand on sword-hilt, threatened to draw it against whosoever should touch Egypt. England and Austria covered the Syrian sea-coast with their sails and guns. Beyrut, Latakia, Tortosa, Tripoli, Saida, Tyre, St. Jean d'Acre were bombarded and fell. This formidable coalition despatched Lord Napier to Alexandria as negotiator. Mehemet Ali accepted the overtures, and a convention guaranteed to him, as Pasha of Egypt, rights of succession unknown to all other pashalics of the empire. The hatti-sherif of January 12, 1841, consolidated this privilege, with, however, certain restrictions which were regarded as inadmissible by France, the viceroy, and the cabinets. A new act of investiture, passed on June 1, 1841, confirmed the viceroy in the possession of Egypt, transmissible to his male heirs, and also in the government of Nubia. Mehemet Ali asked no more, France declared herself satisfied, and, to prove it, became once more a member of the European league by the treaty of July 15, 1841, which, without being directly connected with the European question, dealing as it did with the claims of Turkey upon the Dardanelles, implied, none the less, accordance upon the Eastern situation. As a token of reconciliation, the Ottoman Porte soon raised its former rival, Mehemet Ali, to the rank of sadrazam. The political history of Mehemet Ali was now at an end. All the results, good or bad, of his career, had reached fulfilment. As a vanquished conqueror he had been able to remain firm in the midst of catastrophe; his fatherly ideas and feelings had been his salvation. Had he been absolutely heroic, he would have considered it a duty, for his courage and his name's sake, to carry the struggle on to the bitter end, and to perish in the whirlpool he had raised. He showed that he desired to act thus, but in his children's interests he refrained, and this was, we believe, the only influence of importance which made him give way. It is true that there was not much difference between a throne crumbling to ruins, or one built thereon; such as it was, however, it seemed firmly secured to his children, and it was for them to strengthen the foundations. The pasha considered this a fitting reward for his labours; as for himself, he was over seventy years of age, and ready to lay down his burdens. [Illustration: 153.jpg EGYPTIAN HARMEM]