Thus then, according to Lord Derby and to Lord Palmerston himself, it was not the Russian squadron and army at Constantinople, but it was a distinct declaration on the part of the British consular agent at Alexandria, that stopped Ibrahim's victorious march upon Constantinople, and brought about the arrangement of Kiutayah, by virtue of which Mehemet Ali obtained, besides Egypt, the Pashalic of Syria, of Adana and other places, added as an appendage. But the noble lord thought fit not to allow his consul at Alexandria to make this distinct declaration till after the Turkish army was annihilated, Constantinople overrun by the Cossack, the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi signed by the Sultan, and pocketed by the Czar.
If want of time and want of fleets forbade the noble lord to assist the Sultan, and a superfluity of etiquette to check the Pasha, did he at least employ his ambassador at Constantinople to guard against excessive influence on the part of Russia, and to keep her influence confined within narrow bounds? Quite the contrary. In order not to clog the movements of Russia, the noble lord took good care to have no ambassador at all at Constantinople during the most fatal period of the crisis.
"If ever there was a country in which the weight and station of an ambassador were useful—or a period in which that weight and station might be advantageously exerted—that country was Turkey, during the six months before the 8th of July."—(Lord Mahon, House of Commons, April 20, 1836.)
Lord Palmerston tells us, that the British ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, left Constantinople in September, 1832—that Lord Ponsonby, then at Naples, was appointed in his place in November, and that "difficulties experienced in making the necessary arrangements for his conveyance," although a man-of-war was in waiting for him, "and the unfavourable state of the weather prevented his getting to Constantinople until the end of May, 1833."—(House of Commons, March 17, 1834.)
The Russian was not yet in, and Lord Ponsonby was accordingly ordered to require seven months for sailing from Naples to Constantinople.
