These events, however, at last brought England and Austria into the field, and an English fleet under Napier appeared before Alexandria, and an English force under Sydney Smith before Acre (Saint Jean d’Acre). Mehemet Ali, who was now deserted by France, was thus obliged to sign the Convention of Alexandria, by which Egypt was restored to the suzerainty of the Sultan, with, however, the viceroyalty of the country made hereditary in his family. By the Treaty of London (13th July 1841), this arrangement became part of the public law of Europe, and at the same time the clauses of the Treaty of Unkiar Iskelessi were revised, and the neutrality of the Straits was solemnly reaffirmed. Six days after the disastrous battle of Nezib (June 25, 1839), the Sultan Mahmoud died, and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Medjid. The youthful sovereign, who was only seventeen years old, in spite of the misfortunes that had befallen his country, or, perhaps, rather on account of them, resolved to persevere steadily in the course of reform initiated by his two predecessors. Fortunately he possessed in Reshid Pasha a great Minister, who shared and seconded, and perhaps prompted, the reforming ardour of his master; and on the 3rd November 1839 an Imperial Rescript, the famous Hatti Humayoun of Gulhané, proclaimed the following reforms for the whole empire:— I. A guarantee of life and honour to all Ottoman subjects, without distinction. II. A regulation of taxation so as to put an end to arbitrary exactions. III. The equality of all before the law. IV. Public instruction to be secularised. V. The slave trade to be abolished. VI. The decentralisation of the provincial governments, and a separation of civil, military, and fiscal functions. This great charter was certainly not intended by its author to be a dead letter. It was, on the contrary, an earnest attempt to grapple with the new conditions of the empire, and to restore the spirit of its ancient Constitution, whilst reconciling it to the new requirements of the day. This double purpose was clearly manifested in every line of the new decree, the preamble of which ran as follows:—