ew kingdom of Greece, the Eastern
question had late in 1831 entered into a new and more perilous phase,
owing to the revolt of Mehemet Ali against the sultan on pretext of
chastising the ex-slave Abdullah, pasha of Acre, for refusing to send
back Egyptian fugitives from the effects of Mehemet Ali's "reforms." The
true reason was the refusal of Sultan Mahmud to hand over Syria
according to agreement, and Mehemet Ali's determination to obtain at all
hazards what had been from time immemorial an object of ambition to the
rulers of Egypt. For ten years from this date the relations of sultan
and pasha remained in the forefront of the questions which agitated the
diplomatic world. It was not only the very existence of the Ottoman
empire that seemed to be at stake, but Egypt itself had become more than
ever an object of attention, to British statesmen especially, and in the
issue of the struggle were involved the interests of Great Britain in
the two routes to India by the Isthmus of Suez and the valley of the
Euphrates. The diplomatic and military history of this period will be
found sketched in the article on Mehemet Ali. Here it will suffice to
say that the victorious career of Ibrahim, who once more commanded in
his father's name, beginning with the storming of Acre on the 27th of
May 1832, and culminating in the rout and capture of Reshid Pasha at
Konia on the 21st of December, was arrested by the intervention of
Russia. As the result of endless discussions between the representatives
of the powers, the Porte and the pasha, the convention of Kutaya was
signed on the 14th of May 1833, by which the sultan agreed to bestow on
Mehemet Ali the pashaliks of Syria, Damascus, Aleppo and Itcheli,
together with the district of Adana. The announcement of the pasha's
appointment had already been made in the usual way in the annual firman
issued on the 3rd of May. Adana, reserved for the moment, was bestowed
on Ibrahim under the style of _muhassil_, or collector of the crown
revenues, a few days later.

Mehemet Ali now ruled over a virtually independent empire, subject only
to a moderate tribute, stretching from the Sudan to the Taurus
Mountains. But though he was hailed, especially in France, as the
pioneer of European civilization in the East, the unsound foundations of
his authority were not long in revealing themselves. Scarcely a year
from the signing of the convention of Kutaya the application by Ibrahim
of Egyptian methods of g