The alteration of the opinion of the Allied Ministers only appears in Lord Ponsonby’s letter to Baron Stürmer two days after, in which he withdraws his proposal[90]. He, however, alludes to a letter from Baron Stürmer, communicating this change of opinion, in which the Baron asks, “Have we any right to act according to our fancies, when the route we have to pursue is clearly traced to us?” To which Lord Ponsonby replies, “Certainly not; and in conformity with your just notions, I will continue to act, without the smallest deviation, upon the instructions of December 17, which have already been made known to you, but which, to avoid error, I transcribe _literatim_ from the document. “‘It will indeed be necessary, that in reinstating Mehemet Ali in the Pachalic of Egypt, care should be taken to make such arrangements as would protect the people of Egypt from a continuance of the tyrannical oppression by which they have of late years been crushed, and should secure the Sultan against a renewal of those hostilities which have compelled him to have recourse to the aid of his Allies. But the means of effecting all these purposes may be found in the stipulations of the Treaty of the 15th of July, without removing Mehemet Ali from his Pachalic. The Treaty says, that all the laws of the Turkish Empire, and all the Treaties of the Porte, shall apply to Egypt, just as much as to any other province of the Sultan’s dominions; and the land and sea forces which may be maintained by the Pacha of Egypt, shall be part of the forces of the empire, and be kept up for the service of the State. “‘Under these stipulations, the Sultan will of course be able, by an exercise of his legislative authority, to establish unity of flag, and of military and naval uniform, throughout all his provinces; to limit the number of troops which each province shall, according to its population, maintain; to regulate the mode of enforcing the conscription, so as to protect the people from undue burthens and oppressive levies; to fix the number and class of ships of war which shall belong to the several naval ports of his dominions; to fix the manner in which commissions in the army and navy shall be granted in his name, and by his authority; to determine that a single monetary system shall prevail throughout all his dominions, and that there shall be but one Mint. The Treaty specifies, that none but the legal imposts should be levied in Egypt, which will secure the people from undue exactions; and the execution of the Convention of 1838, by which all monopolies are to be abolished, will at once free the industry of the people of Egypt from those oppressive restrictions which have hitherto kept the great mass of the population in the most abject poverty, and which have gradually thrown out of cultivation extensive tracts of land that were formerly tilled and productive.