What the Ambassador says of the preparations Mehemet Ali was making for resistance is incorrect. I was at Alexandria at the time, and I saw no new preparations; there were a few men completing his unfinished works, which were so ill constructed that if not attended to they would have crumbled to pieces. He was certainly reorganizing his army, after the retreat, which was absolutely necessary; but even had he been preparing for resistance could he be blamed? The Firman that was sent to him was so perfectly absurd that no man in his senses, with an army of 50,000 or 60,000 man, and upwards of 10,000 cavalry, would have accepted such terms from a weak master; and no set of men, possessed of common understanding, and knowing the relative position of the Porte and Mehemet Ali, would have counselled such a Firman. The Ambassador finishes by recommending the Porte to do nothing till they have heard from Great Britain. Baron Stürmer was a wiser man, and he recommended the Porte to seek some means of acceding to the entreaties of Mehemet Ali without compromising the dignity of the Sultan[114]. Baron Königsmark and M. Titow declined giving an opinion till they received further instructions[115]. On the 29th of March Rechid Pacha and Ahmed Fethi Pachi were displaced, and succeeded by Rifat Bey, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Tahir Pacha, as Capudan Pacha. On the 31st March Prince Metternich, seeing no end to this question, instructed Baron Stürmer to inform the Divan, that if they did not adopt the modifications to the Firman recommended by the Conference of London, the Emperor of Austria would withdraw altogether from the alliance. Prince Metternich writes most strongly; he observes, “The contents of your despatch of the 17th of March attract our most serious attention, because they prove the existence of a position without precedent in the annals of diplomacy. What, for example, has been the result of the very precise instructions of the 30th of January? What attention have the Divan, and the agents of the Four Courts, paid to the opinion expressed in that document? On the one hand we see the Porte undecided as to the course which it will have to take on the subject of the representations of Mehemet Ali against certain articles of the Firman; and on the other, the Representatives of the Four Powers ignorant how to counsel from the very clear words of the Collective Note above mentioned; in truth, M. le Baron, it is impossible to make it out.” This is pretty strong language, which he follows up by saying, “The instructions I sent you on the 26th of March have replied, by anticipation, to your scruples, and I flatter myself you will have considered those instructions as anticipating the orders which each of you have applied for, and not have hesitated to offer the advice they contain.