“The Pacha at first sheltered himself under the plea of not being able to take any steps in the matter until he had received the sanction of the Sultan, and thus gained a month or six weeks, until a communication was sent and answer returned from Constantinople. The reply of the Porte arrived in the shape of a Turkish officer of the rank of ‘Meeralaï,’ (Colonel), who, whatever might be his secret instructions, came with professed orders for the immediate liberation of the Syrians. Still no great alacrity was manifested to comply with these injunctions. Time passed away; the month of August arrived, and with it Colonel Barnett, the British Consul-General, who joined me in urging the fulfilment of an engagement which the Pacha continued as perseveringly, to evade. Mustapha Bey, the Turkish Commissioner, _apparently_ united with us in our request; but it may not be here irrelevant to remark, as an instance of what reliance may be placed on Turkish faith and honour, that this person had the audacity to propose to me the _enlèvement_ of Mehemet Ali on the occasion of a proposed visit of the latter to Her Majesty’s steamer Medea; adding, that taking the old gentleman captive to Stamboul, would ensure the fortune of us both! I was strongly inclined to turn the tables on the fellow, by letting the Pacha into the secret; but the consequence would probably have been fatal to the offender, who, after all, was perhaps no worse than the majority of Oriental diplomatists. “How long the negotiation might otherwise have been protracted is hard to say; but, luckily about this time, my representations received great additional weight from the unexpected appearance of a couple of British line-of-battle ships at Alexandria, the Rodney and Calcutta having received orders to station themselves off that port. Accordingly, on the 7th of September, I received a communication from Boghos Bey, stating that the first detachment of Syrian soldiers, to the amount of 1100, would embark in two of the Pacha’s vessels on the following, and sail the succeeding day, offering me, at the same time, accommodation on board; which offer, however, was politely declined. “Fully relying on the accuracy of this statement, I was, on the following day (the 8th), not a little surprised to find that the vessels, with these troops on board, had gone out of port early on _that_ morning. I immediately communicated the circumstance to the Consul-General, and as suspicions were entertained at the time that the Pacha had,—with the concurrence of the Porte,—some design of sending troops to Candia, we concluded that the destination of the people, who were thus clandestinely smuggled off, might not be for Syria. Under this impression, Captain Maunsell, of the Rodney, was immediately communicated with, and he ordered the Egyptian vessels to be watched by the Calcutta and Medea, in which latter vessel I embarked.