The Porte, though they expressed their satisfaction with the plan proposed by the Representatives of the Four Powers, were extremely slow in following it out, and the British Ambassador, who seemed now to be disciplined into obedience by Prince Metternich and Lord Palmerston’s peremptory instructions, on the 12th of May directed his dragoman to tell Rifat Pacha that if any further delay took place, he should feel it necessary to call upon his colleagues to support him in inquiring of the Sublime Porte the cause of the delay[129]. This letter quickened the motions of the Divan; and on the 22nd of May the new Firman was laid before the Allied Ministers, and approved of by them[130]. This Firman complied with Mehemet Ali’s demands; it left Constantinople on the 2nd of June, arrived at Alexandria on the 7th, was accepted by Mehemet Ali, and was publicly read on the 10th[131]. Thus terminated this long protracted question, which might have been as easily settled after the signing of my Convention on the 28th November, 1840, as it was on the 10th June, 1841, and without at all compromising the honour or dignity of the Porte, who the reader has seen was, through the rejection of my arrangement, obliged to make concession to a conquered vassal. Who was the principal adviser of the Sultan the reader will be able to judge by what I have stated; and if that is not sufficiently satisfactory, he may turn over the _Levant Correspondence_, where he will find that the British Ambassador, even at the eleventh hour, lent a willing ear to every report which designing people were too happy to make to him, prejudicial to Mehemet Ali. Footnote 128: See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 417. Footnote 129: See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 433. Footnote 130: Ibid., p. 435. Footnote 131: Ibid., p. 472. CHAPTER XXII. Review of the Turco-Egyptian Question—Mehemet Ali not the Aggressor—Hostile Preparations of the Porte—Representations of the Allied Powers—What Interests affected by the Independence of Mehemet Ali—Views of France—Designs of Russia. The Syrian and Egyptian question being now brought to a close, by the total evacuation of the former country, and Mehemet Ali’s establishment in the hereditary pachalic of Egypt almost on his own terms, it is time to inquire what has been gained by measures that had well nigh plunged Europe into a war, the end of which no man could have foreseen.