Egypt -- History -- Mohammed Ali, 1805-1849; Syria -- History; Turkey -- History -- 1829-1878
The Ambassador wrote in the same sense to M. Titow and Count
Königsmark[96], complaining of the breathless haste they were proceeding
in, in recommending the hereditary succession, and urging every argument
to prevent it in the first instance; all of which happily failed, and at
last he got decided instructions from home, which produced a couple of
short notes to the other Ministers and M. Pisani.
“My dear Sir, “Therapia, Jan. 10, 1841.
“I hasten to acquaint you, that in consequence of what I have received
from my Government by the messenger who has just arrived here, I have
instructed my Dragoman to inform his Excellency the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, that the British Government advises the Sublime Porte to grant
to Mehemet Ali the hereditary government of Egypt.
“I have, &c.,
(Signed) “PONSONBY.”
“To M. Titow.“
“Sir, “Therapia, Jan. 10, 1841.
“You will acquaint his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that
I am ordered to counsel the Sublime Porte, in the name of the British
Government, to grant to Mehemet Ali the hereditary government of Egypt.
“I have, &c.,
(Signed) “PONSONBY.”
“To M. Frederick Pisani.”
Lord Palmerston, in a short letter of February 10[97], approves of the
Ambassador’s conduct, without stating whether it was the long
correspondence to endeavour to induce the Allied Ministers not to
recommend the grant of the hereditary tenure, or the short
correspondence recommending the grant to be confirmed.
Notwithstanding that Lord Ponsonby had been foiled in his first attempt
to prevent the Porte from conferring the hereditary pachalic on Mehemet
Ali, he was not discouraged, and returned to the charge with fresh
vigour, on the question of attaching such conditions to the hereditary
title, as would render it worse than useless; and I have shown that on
reflection, the Allied Ministers altered their opinion, and Lord
Ponsonby in consequence withdrew his proposal.
On the 4th of February the Allied Ministers were invited to a conference
with Rechid Pacha, who laid before them his project of definitively
settling the Egyptian question, which was as follows:—
“Hereditary succession of Egypt granted on condition that all the
Treaties and all the laws of the empire shall be applied to Egypt as to
every other part of the Ottoman empire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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