The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

(FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OT DAY.)
(From the Mornin,g Chronicle.)
We yesterday received by extraordinary express from
Marseilles, and published in a second edition, a letter
from our Alexandrian correspondent, dated the 11th.
In this day's publication it will be found repeated. A
second edition published in the Times, giving a com-
pletely false version of the intelligence, created un-
easiness, which, however, subsided when its real charac-
ter became known, The funds, which were depressed
by the second edition of the Times, recovered upon the '
appearance of the full and satisfactory details of the
other papers. The convention agreed upon between
the Pacha and Asiftmiral Stopford does not differ mate-
rially from thM9Eready concluded with Commodore
Napier. Indeed the only point of difference is with
regard to the time of the delivery of the
fleet. And this seems to be hardly of sufficient practical
importance to justify what most readers, we doubt not,
will regard as a very unmerited censure upon t'ae
Commodore's proceedings. We cannot, of course,
pretend to know what may have been Commodore
Napier's instructions. But we presume the Admiral
did not send six sail of the line and three steamers to
Alexandria to repeat his own exhibition of August last.
For what purpose, then, were they sent? Not to lie
off the open coast while the Admiral himself ran into
Marmorice. Yet something of this kind would seem
to be the case, from the tone in which the Admiral speaks
of the Convention of November. He "is sorry it was
concluded"—he " cannot approve of or ratify it"—it is a
" hasty and unauthorised Convention." And yet we can-
not see that the Admiral and his flag officer have done
much better. If Commodore Napier acted upon his
own responsibility, be seems to have very shrewdly an-
ticipated the instructions of his superior. It seems to
us to have been the very height of folly to have sent
the Commodore's squadron to Alexandria unless with
power to negotiate, or, failinc, that, to act. If em-
power;il to negotiate, it has been' decided, we beli.lve,
by even higher authority than Admiral Stopford, that
the Commodore has negotiated suecoisfully. And if
tie was not empowered to negotiate or to act, Admiral
Scopford should thank rather than censure him for
taking the responsibility upon his own shoulders. In
other respects the news continues most satisfactory.
The Pacha is ready to comply immediately with the de-
mands of the Sultan, and there seems no furthcr ob-
stacle to an immediate settlement of the question.
Ibrahim Pacha was in retreat upon Egypt with about
30,000 men. It was doubtful, however, whether be

sould find it practicable to cross the desert in the f,ce
of the Bedouins, who were gathering in considerable
numbers.

(From the Times.)

News reached u's by extraordinary express yesterdly,
and was published in second and third editions of this
journal, that the lately signed Convention between Com-
modore Napier and Mehemet Ali had been annulled
by Slr Robert Stoptord, on the ground that Commo-
:lore Napier had no commission or authority to sign any
such Convention, and that it could not therefore he
ratified by Sir Robert Stopford. Nevertheless, on
;coking calmly at the practical effect produced by this
•wcrtltrow of an act which had borne to the eyes of
Europe the promise and pretension of an absolute •` set-
Llement of the Evtern quarrel," we do not see that
there is much re -Ai, at least tnuch immediate, change
,rising from it, in the relative condition of Mehemet
Ali and the Porte. The tempereshibited, and perhaps,
tinder the circumstances, not unnaturally, in the Admi-
ral's letter to the Pacha of the 2d of December, must be
altogether flung aside in our estimate of material and
rnportant facts. All that we can learn from that
communication is the refusal of Sir R. Stopford to

a' if) the convention, as having been framed without
,ny official sanction from the superiors of the Conmio-
tore. The terms proposed by Admiral Stopford are
ncloubtedly different in appearance, but no: so much in
Abstance as might have been feared, from those of the
taratified convention. The convention stipulated, that

he troops of Ibrahim should be transported by sea to
Alexandria, and that vessels should be sent under Fri-
ish safeguard for that purpose to Beyrout. N ~"
elys Sr Robert Stopfnrd, " that must not be, for I
:,ave learned that Ibrahim Pacha has already left ll,;-
:nascus with his army, proceeding to the southward.
towards the,Holy Cities," or words to that effect ; " and
tberefore the messenger whom your Highness has seat
can have no safeguard to your son." At the same
tune, ho.vever, it appears, according :,to the letter
of Sir R. Stopford, that Ibrahim Pacha vr.ts
actually in movement with his troops for the
purpose of evacuating Syria, and withdrawing his whole
!orce towards the city of Mecca and the eastern shores
of the Red Sea ; so that little would be gained or lost
:)n either side by this defeat of the convention in what

expected the army alone ; and it is to be borne in mind
hit the march of Ibrahim, to be prosecuted in I.to

f)lutrins, and the consequence doubtless of direct orders
from the Paella, had been commenced before the signa-
ture of the convention, although the wily Minister of
M,hennet took care to conczal that fact from Comtho-
tore Napier, and turned to account in his negotiaticns
with the British seamen the assumption that the dep .r-
-ture of the troops from Syria must yet be stipulated
'or by treaty. Of course it could not have been conceded
f o tho Paella, that Ibrahim and his 20,000 or 30,000
men should be at liberty to occupy any portion of Arabia
as an equivalent for the loss of Syria. A 'mown of
teat nature was never contemplated either by Napier
or by the British Government, and might have lad to a
state of things not much, if at all, less troublesome
than the seizure of Syria itself. Our private cor-
respondence, however, affirms that if such an enter-
prise had been seriously entertained by Ibrahim, he had
afterwards changed his route, and marched away straight
towards Egypt, one division of his force by Gaza, the
other apparently by Suez and the Desert. It is
more than probable that bad Napier known of this
final break-up of the Syrian campaign being so im-
mediate on the part of Mehemet Ali, he would
have insisted on more peremptory conditions for the
surrender of the Turkish fleet than that by which he
left it dependent on a guarantee of the hereditary
Pachalic of Egypt by the Four Powers—a " guarantee"
to which Sir It. Stopford makes no reference, while
the rord " hereditary" never once occurs in the
formal and official despatch of Lord Palmerston to
the Admiralty, dated November 14, and transmitted
to Mehemet by the bands of Captain Fanshawe on the
6th instant. The demands of the Four Powers upon
the Pacha contained in that despatch are-1, a
" prompt" submission to the Sultan, as his Sovereign ;
2, a prompt restoration of the Turkish fleet ; 3, a
prompt evacuation of Syria, Adana, Candia, Arabia,
and the Holy Cities. And the inducement held out to
Mehemet All to make the said concessions is "a pro-
mised recommendation by the Four allied Powers to
the Porte, that notwithstanding the decree by which
the Sultan has declared Mehemet Ali deposed from the
Government of Egypt, he may be re-established in
that Pachalic." A " prompt" submission is made by
Lord Palmerston the sine qua non of any
favour whatsoever to the Pacha. There is
nothing mere manifest than that the existence of
the Pacha would depend upon his immediate
fulfiiment of the conditions stipulated, although the
term " prompt" was interpreted to signify the brief
lapse of three days from the delivery of the Admiral's
message. The answer of the old Pacha is a complete
submission. He complains, indeed, of the breach of a
Convention signed by a British officer in the command
of a powerful squadron, and on the evidence of his
own acts vested with at least implied authority to insure
• the execution of that which he engaged for. It ap-
pears that upon the face of the transaction Mehe-
, met Ali has just reason to complain, although, when we
look into the substance of the matter, he is really no
worse off than before he signed the Convention, having,
as there is shrewd reason to suspect, commanded Ibra-
him to retire before the negotiation of that contract,
owing to the desperate aspect of his own affairs, although
he pretends in his letter to the Grand Vizier, to have is-
sued that order in pursuance and execution of the Napier
treaty. However, there he now stands, with the means
at leis disposal of being " re-established in the Pachalic,"
—whether as an inheritance it is not said, whether for
life it is not said, although we think it may and ought to
be taken for granted that his Pachalic is meant to be
hereditary. There will, we are told, be certain condi-
tions annexed, of such a nature as to mark the differ-
ence between a Sovereign and a subject, but not, we
trust, such as to raise European controversies upon the
bona fide fulfilment of pledges which, whether strictly
demandable or not, have, by the general sense and feel-
ing of Europe, been regarded as those which political