INTERVIEW WITH MEHEMET ALI IN HIS PALACE AT 
ALEXANDRIA. 
This subject appropriately illustrates Modern Egypt, since it represents a scene in 
which Mr. Roberts was introduced to Mehemet Ali, one of the most remarkable men 
of our day and of history. From a low condition in life, he attained an elevation 
which in more civilised society would have been hopeless—to the government of Egypt. 
Cunning, acuteness, resolution, and perseverance, were his qualities. His means of 
employing them shock our morality, but they were admired and applauded in the 
East as deeply political. National judgments differ widely when applied to the con¬ 
sideration of great acts. The policy which extirpated the most infamous government 
that ever disgraced even the East, and held out the hope of such an improved condition 
of society there as may one day place Egypt among those civilised nations on which 
free men are governed by laws and institutions for the benefit of the common weal, 
deserves to be considered well before it is condemned; but if this be doubted, no one 
will deny the wisdom and virtue of the Pasha’s conduct, when, after the countries he 
had conquered had been wrested from him, and his fleet and army were destroyed 
in Syria, he might have revenged himself upon the British passengers to India and 
merchants in Alexandria. No interruption, however, to our intercourse bv the Overland 
route was offered by him; and when our Consul at Alexandria, who feared the 
Pasha’s retaliation, had taken refuge on board our ships, Mehemet Ali called the 
merchants before him and said, “ Your Consul and representative has deserted you; 
you are helpless, and at my mercy; but consider me your Consul and protestor. 
Your lives and property are safe whilst in my keeping.” He afterwards became 
reconciled to his disasters when the influence of the British Government obtained from 
the Porte, for him and to his heirs in perpetuity, the government of the Land of 
the Pharaohs. 
“Whilst in Alexandria, May 12, 1839,” says Mr. Roberts, “I received from 
Colonel Campbell an invitation to breakfast and afterwards to accompany him to an 
interview with the Pasha, which had been arranged for that day. Our party started 
for the Arsenal, where Mehemet Ali was ready to receive us. After passing through 
numerous guards we were ushered into the presence-chamber, which, from the window, 
commanded a magnificent view of the harbour. The fleet, consisting of about twenty 
sail of the line fully equipped, the Arsenal, the dockyards, and numerous batteries — 
displaying a power created by his own forethought and energies — lay before us, a 
glorious scene. The room was spacious and lofty, and crowded with officers in rich 
uniforms, many of them wearing the decorations. The Pasha was in simple costume, 
without any mark of distinction upon him which Nature had not stamped, and which 
