9° ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND EGYPT. 



In the beginning of the year 1839, Turkey took the field with a 

 powerful army, to contend with the Egyptian forces, under the 

 command of Ibrahim Pasha, the eldest son of Mehemet Ali, and the 

 contending forces met at Aleppo, which resulted in the complete 

 defeat of the Turkish General, and was followed by an advance of 

 the Egyptian forces on Constantinople. 



Unfortunately, Turkey, at this supreme moment in her history, lost 

 her Ruler, Sultan Mahmoud II., one of the ablest of her Sultans, and 

 was succeeded by Abdul Medjid, a youth of seventeen, at a time 

 when the Turkish army was disorganised ; her fleet captured by, or 

 deserted to, Mehemet Ali ; her Government in confusion ; the capital, 

 Constantinople, seething with discontent ; and rebellion triumphant 

 in Syria and Egypt ; and under such a state of things it can be no 

 matter of surprise that, on the one hand, Russia believed her hour 

 was come to carry out her ambitious designs on Constantinople, and 

 that England, and France, on the other hand, despaired of averting 

 the utter collapse of the Turkish Empire. 



From the first appearance of this difficulty, the policy of England 

 in the East, under Lord Palmerston, never wavered ; its sole object 

 being to crush the rebellion of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, to restore the 

 rule of the Porte in her dominions in Europe and in Asia, and 

 thereby successfully to withstand the aggressions of Russia. 



Lord Palmerston's resolution was firm and his policy clear, and he 

 was manfully supported by Lord John Russell, and to show his 

 determination, the English Fleet was in readiness in the Mediter- 

 ranean, one part of the Naval Squadron menaced Alexandria, and 

 another portion was anchored off Besika Bay, ready to force 

 the Dardanelles, the" moment the Russian Fleet, or the Egyptian 

 forces approached Constantinople. 



It is true that the British Cabinet were not united, that the 

 Government had not a strong majority in Parliament, that Lord 

 Holland, who commanded a powerful following, sided with Russia, and 

 did not believe in the regeneration of Turkey, for he sympathised- 

 with the policy of France in favour of Mehemet Ali; but Lord 

 Palmerston was equal to the emergency, and throughout shewed no 

 sign of wavering. 



A crisis arrived. In the summer of 1839, a Conference of the Five 

 Powers on Eastern Affairs assembled in London, which at the outset, 

 showed a serious difference between France and the other European 

 Powers, on the measures to be adopted for the pacification of the 

 East. 



