Turkish allegiance, but the defeat of the first French expedition against Constantine prevented his taking any decided step. In December 1836 a riot occurred amongst the Maltese, and the Bey (whose sympathies were less English than those of his brother) decreed the banishment of the whole colony _en masse_, and was with great difficulty prevented from carrying his order into execution. Sidi Mustapha continued to weakly waver between the French and the Porte, and the French and the English, till October 1839, when he died. CHAPTER X. THE REIGNS OF AHMED BEY AND HIS COUSIN MUHAMED BEY. After the accession of Ahmed Bey in 1839, the French party in Tunis used every means to obtain the ascendency. They decorated and redecorated the Bey’s secretary, and brought a zealous ecclesiastic from Algiers to obtain a preponderating influence in the Roman Catholic Mission. The turn matters took in Egypt and Syria two years later seems, however, to have seriously interfered with their plans. During the spring of 1841 the purport of the secret article in the treaty of 1830 transpired, and the French began to build the St. Louis Memorial Chapel on the Carthage Hill. As the walls gradually assumed the shape of a strongly fortified _enceinte_, the Bey became thoroughly alarmed. Sketches and plans were transmitted to England; Sidi Ahmed protested and threatened to construct a martello tower to command the sacred edifice, and finally sent for Sir Thomas Reade to tell him that “the French were the greatest thorn in his side, and that he threw himself entirely upon the good offices and protection of England.” A month later, with the view of further conciliating Lord Palmerston, Ahmed Bey took the first step towards the abolition of negro slavery in his dominions. He issued a decree forbidding the exportation of slaves from Tunis, and liberated all the negroes belonging to his own establishment. Unfortunately for the Bey’s peace of mind, Tahir Pacha at this juncture became Grand Vizier at Constantinople. Tahir was, rightly or wrongly, supposed to have a long standing grudge against the Beys of Tunis on account of having been (through the diplomatic skill of the French Chargé d’Affaires) refused permission to land there after the capture of Algiers. Be this as it may, the Bey soon received a letter disclosing a scheme of the Porte to reduce the Regency to the status of a simple province. Ahmed Pacha immediately addressed several letters to Lord Palmerston, requesting the mediation of the English Government. “Only one thing,” he wrote, “can be worse for Tunis than its extinction by the Porte, and that is its absorption by France.” French ships now remained at Goletta almost permanently, and care was taken to turn the coolness with the Porte to the best possible advantage. England reassured the Bey by sending him a sword and six field-pieces; and France, not to be outdone, lost no time