“The success which has attended Your Highness in the vilayet of Syria has been reported to His Majesty by Sir Henry Layard, who has just returned from his travels in Syria. His Majesty was on the point of sending you his congratulations, and of asking you what measures should be taken for the application of those reforms in which you encounter some obstacles. The arrival of your resignation has caused regret to His Majesty. You declare that the principal reason of your resignation is your advanced age, but as Your Highness is well aware, the longer an official has served, so much the greater will be his experience and his competency. Now, just at the moment when the State is on the point of reaping the fruits of Your Highness’ long experience and high efficiency, your decision to withdraw from public affairs cannot agree with the sentiments of your well‐known patriotism, and His Majesty would not, at present, be able to reconcile himself to placing on the unattached list, a servant as capable and experienced as Your Highness. Consequently, the reasons of your resignation are not admissible. His Majesty orders me to beg that you will address yourself directly to the Palace, if you have complaints to formulate.—I am, etc., “(Signed) ALI FUAD. “_10th October 1295, O.S._” (_22nd October, 1879._) _Reply._ _To Ali Fuad Bey, H.M. First Secretary._ “EXCELLENCY,—I have received the cipher telegram of the 10th October, 1295, and I humbly thank His Majesty for the questions which he has deigned to address to me; my request is occasioned by the weakness of my body and by the responsibility imposed upon me by the state of the vilayet. All the services of the vilayet are in disorder; the localities, as well as the population on the coast, are almost entirely under foreign influences, and the interior of the country, ever since the war, has been undermined by insurrections, which paralyse all the efforts of the State to bear on the abolition of the dissensions and revolts, in order to secure to the population a measure of repose and justice under the ægis of the State, by taking into consideration the exigencies of the localities and the requirements of the inhabitants. While this state of affairs exists, the enforced application in this vilayet of such reforms as those imposed in the vilayets of Konia and of Angora has only succeeded in alienating still further the population from the Government, and caused it to sympathise still more strongly with the foreigners. Moreover, even the power to assure the security of the Province is in the hands of the Military Administration, yet the responsibility thereof has been assumed by the Vali, which is not in the least in agreement with any known rule, and the disputes which may arise from this system can only add to the other mismanagements, and as the vilayet cannot go on for more than six months or a year in this