us:--

"On his private life it would be unfair to pass judgment without
taking into consideration the turbulence and lawlessness, the immorality
and corruption both social and political, which characterized the
stormy epoch in which he was called to play a very prominent part.
If he did not pass through it blameless, he was less guilty than
many others; if his hands were not pure, at least they were not
blood-stained; and it is possible that, as Bourienne, who knew
him well, says: 'History will speak as favorably of him as his
contemporaries have spoken ill.'"

The summer of 1840 seemed peaceful and serene, when a storm burst
suddenly out of a cloudless sky. It was a new phase of that Eastern
Question which unhappily was not settled in the days of the Crusades,
but has survived to be a disturbing element in the nineteenth century.
Two men were engaged in a fierce struggle in the East, and, as usual,
they drew the Powers of the West and North into their quarrel.

Sultan Mahmoud, who had come to the throne in 1808, had done his
best to destroy the power of his pashas. He hated such powerful and
insubordinate nobles, and after the destruction of the Mamelukes
in 1811, he placed Egypt under the rule of the bold Macedonian
soldier, Mehemet Ali, not as a pasha, but as viceroy. In course
of time, as the dominions of Sultan Mahmoud became more and more
disorganized by misgovernment and insurrection, Mehemet Ali sent
his adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, with an army into Syria. Ibrahim
conquered that province and governed it far better than the Turks
had done, when he was stopped by a Russian army (1832), which,
under pretence of assisting the sultan, interfered in the quarrel.
An arrangement was effected by what is called the treaty of
Unkiar-Thelessi. Ibrahim was to retain the pashalik of Syria for
his life, and Russia stipulated that no vessels of war should be
allowed to pass the Dardanelles or Hellespont without the consent
of the sultan.

Mehemet Ali, who was anxious above all things to have his viceroyalty
in Egypt made hereditary, that he might transmit his honors to his
brave son, cast about in every direction to find friends among
European diplomatists. Six years before, he had proposed to England,
France, and Austria a partition of the sultan's empire. "Russia,"
he said, "is half mistress of Turkey already. She has established
a protectorate over half its subjects, who are Greek Christians,
and where she professes to