Lord Palmerston writes still more strongly to the Ambassador, under date of the 29th January[92], in which, relating a conversation he had had with the Turkish Minister in London, he says, in reply to the unwillingness of the Porte to grant the hereditary pachalic communicated to him by Chekib Effendi, “I said, that in all affairs, one must be content with what is practicable, and not endanger what has been obtained by striving after that which is unattainable. I said, that it is clear that Mehemet Ali has made his submission in the expectation that he should obtain hereditary tenure in Egypt: now if, after all, this tenure were to be refused to him, what would probably be the consequence?—renewed revolt, or an attitude, at least, of passive resistance. What would then be the remedy? Such a state of things could not be allowed to continue, because if it lasted, it would amount to the separation of Egypt from the Turkish Empire. But the Sultan, has not, at present, naval or military means sufficient to enforce his authority, in such a case, over Mehemet Ali in Egypt. The Sultan, would, therefore, be obliged to have recourse for aid to his Allies. But the measures hitherto agreed upon by the Four Powers in virtue of the Treaty of July, are confined to the expulsion of the Egyptians from Syria, Arabia, and Candia, and to the driving of Mehemet Ali’s forces and authorities back within the limits of Egypt. If, then, the Sultan were to apply to the Four Powers for assistance to attack Mehemet Ali in Egypt itself, a new deliberation of the Conference would become necessary. “Now, I said to Chekib, I could tell him beforehand what would be the result of that deliberation, if the assistance asked for by the Sultan were required in consequence of the Sultan’s refusal to comply with the advice given him by the Four Powers, to confer upon Mehemet Ali hereditary tenure of his Egyptian pachalic. I said I knew perfectly well that the Four Powers would decline giving the Sultan such assistance; and what then would happen? Why, the Sultan would, in consequence, find himself, for want of sufficient means of his own, obliged to grant to Mehemet Ali, with a bad grace, and after an ineffectual attempt to avoid doing so, that which he might now make a merit of conferring willingly; and thus, instead of performing, as he now may do, an act of sovereign power, at the suggestion of his Allies, he would appear to all the world as making an extorted concession to a subject.