In the end all these schemes were dropped, and Palestine was handed back to the Porte practically without any new conditions. Prussia, however, continued her negotiations with Great Britain, both with a view to general reforms and to the recognition of the Protestant Church in Jerusalem. For this purpose she sent Baron Bunsen to London on a special embassy.[132] Among the reforms proposed by him were facilities for the purchase of land, "as many persons in Protestant Germany, Jews and Christians, are desirous of settling in Palestine."[133] Eventually he negotiated with Palmerston the Anglo-Prussian Agreement for the establishment of a Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem. There is a curious reference to the Restoration of the Jews in Bunsen's account of this transaction:[134] * * * * * "Monday, 19th July, 1841.--This is a great day. I am just returned from Lord Palmerston; the principle is admitted, and orders to be transmitted accordingly to Lord Ponsonby at Constantinople, to demand the acknowledgement required. The successor of St. James will embark in October; he is by race an Israelite,--born a Prussian in Breslau,--in confession belonging to the Church of England--ripened (by hard work) in Ireland--twenty years Professor of Hebrew and Arabic in England (in what is now King's College).[135] So the beginning is made, please God, for the restoration of Israel." * * * * * It should be added that probably one of the reasons why, during recent years, the British Government has held aloof from the Palestine question is that by the Treaty of London of July 15, 1840, Palestine was recognised as an integral part of Syria,[136] and that in 1878, at the Berlin Congress, Lord Salisbury agreed to recognise the whole of Syria as a French sphere of interest in return for the French recognition of the Cyprus Convention between Great Britain and Turkey.[137] It is to be assumed from the terms of the Secret Agreement of February 21, 1917,[138] that British interests in the Suez Canal and other more recent events have modified that arrangement. During the present war the growing strength of the Zionist movement, and the energy of its leaders, have forced the Restoration idea on the attention of the Great Powers. In November 1917 Great Britain led the way with a promise to give sympathetic consideration to the aims of the Zionists.[139] With this promise the other Entente Powers have since associated themselves. DOCUMENTS. * * * * * THE GREAT POWERS AND PALESTINE, 1840-1841. _Memorandum delivered by the Russian Government to the Prussian Government in October 1840._