ledge of the Nezib disaster and the
treason of his fleet, which passed into the hands of the viceroy. Hafiz
Pasha, routed by Ibrahim, was arraigned on his return to Constantinople
for leading the attack before receiving the official mandate; but the
Turkish general produced an autograph of his defunct master. The sultan
had been false to the last, and deceived both European ambassadors and
the ministers of the empire, by means of mysterious correspondence,
combined with his protestations for the maintenance of peace.

It was while Mehemet Ali was organising the national guard of Egypt,
and arranging the military training of the workmen employed in his many
factories, that the unlucky treaty of July 15, 1840, which gave the
whole of Syria to the Sublime Porte, was concluded. Four Western Powers
had secretly met in London and agreed to deprive the sovereign of the
Nile of his conquests, and fling him again at the foot of the throne,
which he had treated as a plaything. Mehemet Ali haughtily protested
against the desecration of his rights, and France, his faithful ally,
with hand on sword-hilt, threatened to draw it against whosoever should
touch Egypt. England and Austria covered the Syrian sea-coast with their
sails and guns. Beyrut, Latakia, Tortosa, Tripoli, Saida, Tyre, St. Jean
d'Acre were bombarded and fell. This formidable coalition despatched
Lord Napier to Alexandria as negotiator. Mehemet Ali accepted the
overtures, and a convention guaranteed to him, as Pasha of Egypt,
rights of succession unknown to all other pashalics of the empire. The
hatti-sherif of January 12, 1841, consolidated this privilege, with,
however, certain restrictions which were regarded as inadmissible by
France, the viceroy, and the cabinets. A new act of investiture, passed
on June 1, 1841, confirmed the viceroy in the possession of Egypt,
transmissible to his male heirs, and also in the government of Nubia.
Mehemet Ali asked no more, France declared herself satisfied, and, to
prove it, became once more a member of the European league by the treaty
of July 15, 1841, which, without being directly connected with the
European question, dealing as it did with the claims of Turkey upon
the Dardanelles, implied, none the less, accordance upon the Eastern
situation. As a token of reconciliation, the Ottoman Porte soon raised
its former rival, Mehemet Ali, to the rank of sadrazam.

The political history of Mehemet Ali was now at an end. All the res