Venturing on so important a measure as this Convention without authority, would only be justified by the result; but it was not without precedent. Sir Sydney Smith had entered into a Convention with the French for the evacuation of Egypt, and Captain Foote had also, when serving under Lord Nelson, entered into one for the evacuation of Naples. Both were rejected by their superior officers. The rejection of the first led to the expedition to Egypt, which cost some millions, and the loss of much life; the rejection of the last, to scenes that are better buried in oblivion. -------------- APPENDIX. CONVENTION concluded between the Courts of GREAT BRITAIN, AUSTRIA, PRUSSIA, and RUSSIA on the one part, and the SUBLIME OTTOMAN PORTE on the other, for the pacification of the Levant, signed at London, July 15, 1840. In the Name of the Most Merciful God. His Highness the Sultan having addressed himself to their Majesties the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of all the Russias, to ask their support and assistance in the difficulties in which he finds himself placed by reason of the hostile proceedings of Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt,—difficulties which threaten with danger the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and the independence of the Sultan’s throne,—Their said Majesties, moved by the sincere friendship which subsists between them and the Sultan; animated by the desire of maintaining the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire as a security for the peace of Europe; faithful to the engagement which they contracted by the Collective Note presented to the Porte by their Representatives at Constantinople, on the 27th of July, 1839; and desirous, moreover, to prevent the effusion of blood which would be occasioned by a continuance of the hostilities which have recently broken out in Syria between the authorities of the Pacha of Egypt and the subjects of the Sultan; their said Majesties and His Highness the Sultan have resolved, for the aforesaid purposes, to conclude together a Convention, and they have therefore named as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say: Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Right Honourable Henry John Viscount Palmerston, Baron Temple, a Peer of Ireland, a Member of Her Britannic Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a Member of Parliament, and her Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs;