ultan
into this war has done an act of great folly, as it could only bring
the Porte into jeopardy.

[Footnote 49: Armand Barbes, the leader of a fatal riot
in Paris, was sentenced to death, a sentence afterwards
remitted.]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

_3rd August 1839._

Lord Melbourne will wait upon your Majesty at a quarter before five,
if possible, but there is much to discuss at the Cabinet. The Caspian
Pasha has taken the Turkish fleet to Alexandria,[50] and Mehemet Ali
says that he will not give it up to the Sultan until he dismisses the
Grand Vizier, and acknowledges the hereditary right of the Pasha to
the countries which he at present governs. This is to make the Sultan
his subject and his vassal.

The accounts from Birmingham are by no means good.[51] There has
been no disturbance of the peace, but the general disposition is both
violent and determined.

[Footnote 50: The Viceroy of Egypt had revolted against the
Porte, and on 8th June the Sultan purported to deprive him and
Ibrahim, his son, of their dignities. War was declared,
and the Turkish fleet despatched to Syria. But the Admiral
treacherously sailed to Alexandria, and the Ottoman troops,
under Hafiz, who had succeeded Mehemet Ali in the Government
of Egypt, were utterly routed. With the traitorous conduct
of the Turkish admiral, Disraeli, a few years later, compared
Peel's conversion to Free Trade.]

[Footnote 51: Chartist riots were very frequent at the time.
_See_ Introductory Note, _ante_, p. 141. (to Ch. VIII)]

[Pageheading: THE OPERA]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Melbourne._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _4th August 1839._

The Queen hopes Lord Melbourne is quite well this morning, and did not
sit up working very late last night; the Queen met him twice yesterday
in the Park, and really wondered how anybody _could_ ride, for she
came home much hotter than she went out, and thought the air quite
like as if it came out of an oven; to-day we can breathe again. It was
intensely hot at the Opera; the Queen-Dowager visited the Queen in her
box, as did also the young Grand Duke of Weimar, who is just returned
from Scotland, and whom the Queen has asked to come after dinner
to-morrow. The Queen has not asked the Duke of Sussex to come after
dinner to-morrow, as she thought he would be bored by such a sort of
party; does not Lord Melbourne think so? and she means to