Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/114

Mehemet Ali refuses the terms.Mehemet Ali refused to accept the arrangement proposed, and the Porte, against the judgment of the Powers, immediately declared him to be deprived of his pashalics. The Powers acted as had been agreed. Beyrout was bombarded in September, and Acre fell in November, on the 27th of which month Commodore Napier agreed with Mehemet Ali that the latter should become hereditary governor of Egypt,Mehemet Ali submits on certain conditions^[1]. The Commodore’s convention was however disavowed, as in excess of his powers; but on 6th December Admiral Stopford transmitted to Mehemet Ali an offer, duly made on behalf of the Allies, that he should be maintained in the hereditary pashalic of Egypt, if within three days he would engage to evacuate the other possessions of which he was still in occupation and to restore the Turkish fleet. These terms were accepted on 11th December. Syria, Candia, and Arabia were evacuated, and on 14th January, 1841, the Turkish fleet was given up.

The Firman of 13th February 1841.Some difficulty remained in determining the conditions of Mehemet Ali’s tenure of Egypt. He strongly objected to a Firman of 13th February, 1841, granting to him the pashalic hereditarily, but reserving to the Sultan on each vacancy the right of selecting the heir who should receive investiture^[2]. Through the influence of the Powers these terms were modified^[3], and a new Firman was issued on 1st June, after being pronounced free from objection by the representatives at Constantinople of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

The representatives of the same Powers at London signed,

1. N.R.G. xv, 489.
2. Another Firman of the same date grants to Mehemet Ali, but not hereditarily, the government of Nubia, Darfour, Cordofan, and Senaar. Legislation Ottomane, ii. p. 136.
3. The representatives of the Powers at London, on being consulted, referred the Porte to the Treaty of 1840 for the principles upon which the pashalic of Egypt should be granted, and to their notes of 20th January and 13th March for the mode in which these principles ought to be applied. Parl. Papers, 1841, Correspondence as to the Levant, iii. p. 412.