p.136
During the years covered by the Arabian and Sudanese campaigns, British commercial interests in Egypt flourished. In 1817 Salt reported that, for the year September 1815 to September 1816, 125 British merchant vessels had arrived at Alexandria and 214 merchant vessels had sailed from Alexandria for English ports. This increasing British commercial interest was due less to the enterprise of the Levant Company than to the initiatives of individual British merchants. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the Levant Company had lost much of its importance. In Egypt, the end of the old ghetto-like existence which the foreign communities had led under the Mamluks, and the opening of the country to European influences, had rendered the old ‘factory’ system obsolete. And, in English commercial thinking, the old system of monopolistic trading companies was being replaced by a concept of individual free enterprise. Politically, too, the atmosphere had changed as a result of the subordination of commercial to political interests in the Ottoman Empire. In the eighteenth century the British Ambassador at Constantinople had been appointed jointly by the British government and the Levant Company, and the British consuls in the Ottoman Empire had been nominated and paid by the Levant Company. But, as the affairs of the Ottoman Empire became more and more involved in European politics, and in British imperial interests, this became an unworkable arrangement. As from 1804 the Levant Company ceased to have any voice in the nomination of or in the instructions given to, the British Ambassador. In 1825 the Levant Company surrendered its Charter to the Crown and its existence came to an end.
Henry Salt, who was much more favourably disposed towards the Viceroy than Missett, arriving in Egypt as Consul-General at the beginning of 1816. This war was by that time over and the task of the British Representative was no longer dominated by the necessity for discovering and combating real or supposed French intrigues. In his instructions he had been told to use his best endeavours ‘to maintain all the privileges and immunities of the Levant Company and to preserve inviolate the capitulations which already exist in favour of their trade and enlarge the same as far as possible’. He was also instructed to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the country and to ‘maintain a good understanding with the agents of all Powers and endeavour to penetrate into any designs that may be entertained by them prejudicial to the interests of HM’. He was enjoined to keep in close touch with HM’s Ambassador at Constantinople, with HM’s Minister at Naples, with British Resident at Corfu, with the Governor of Malta, and with the C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet. This is an indication of the extent to which the British government had come to regard Egypt as part of the Mediterranean world.
Over the next few years Salt, in accordance with his instructions, was to complain and protest against the incidence of the monopolies and against various infringements of the Capitulations. But, as he pointed out to the British Ambassador, the merchants’ complaints were really invalid in that, if Ottoman rule in Egypt had been effective and the Capitulations strictly applied, the export of most of the monopolized products would, under Ottoman regulations, have been forbidden altogether, and that the cotton, indigo and sugar subject to monopoly would not have been produced in Egypt at all but for Mohamed Ali’s enterprise. The English merchants, like most businessmen, wanted it both ways; they wanted, on the one hand, the advantages, without the disadvantages, of being under direct Ottoman rule and, on the other hand, the advantages, without the disadvantages, which they actually derived from being under Mohammed Ali’s rule. As Salt put it, they seemed to think that the Capitulations acted as a positive prohibition against the Ruler of the country standing between the merchants and the cultivators. He expressed the view, and Stratford Canning, the Ambassador, agreed with him, that ‘it could not been intended by the Porte to concede the right of control over its own regulations’, and pointed out that Mohamed Ali would have been within his rights to prohibit the export of cotton (in which the British merchants were principally interested) altogether.
In fact, a great many extensions to the extraterritorial privileges enjoyed under the Capitulations were introduced for the benefit of European residents and those living under the protection of European Consuls. Article 16 of the Capitulations treaty with Britain was interpreted as providing, not only that all criminal cases, as well as civil disputes, involving European nationals were exempted from the local jurisdiction, but that all civil cases in which a European national was a defendant against an Ottoman subject should be tried in the defendant’s Consular Court. Salt reported that ‘European subjects accused even of robbery or forgery are by usage handed over to the Consul…It would be considered a great disgrace to his country and to the European character in general should the Consul give up a debtor or criminal to the local authority, as the strict sense of Capitulations would seem to prescribe.’ He went on to explain that this ‘established usage’ had arisen ‘out of the base and mercenary character of Turkish Courts of Justice’, and because ‘the affairs of merchants and shipping are not, as in Europe, regulated by any formal law, but all is decided according to the caprice and, often, the interested maliciousness of the local authority’. The extension of the Capitulations described by Salt did to a great extent shield the foreign merchant community increased greatly in numbers and affluence. A petition addressed to the Consul-General by the British merchant houses of Alexandria in 1825 indicates that there were 15 such houses. During the year September 1823 – September 1824 goods to the value of £178,723 were exported from Egypt to Great Britain against imports worth £35, 198 from Great Britain to Egypt. The comparable figures for all Mediterranean ports were £41,080 exported from Egypt and £27,242 imported into Egypt. Much of the exports, particularly to Great Britain, consisted of cotton, the cultivation of which as an export crop was being promoted by Mohamed Ali. Egypt’s ‘favourable trade balance’ as revealed by these figures, was no doubt assisted by Mohamed Ali’s monopolies, which enabled him to maximise export and minimise import prices, and resulted in a regular flow of specie into Egypt, which Mohamed Ali needed for paying the troops engaged in his numerous and expensive wars.
p.158
This was Salt’s last important despatch. At the end of October, just before leaving Egypt for sick leave to Europe, he died. John Barker, British Consul in Alexandria, took over as Consul-General. Before he had done so, the resources of diplomacy had been overtaken by the arbritrament of war. On 20 October 1827 the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets were attacked and destroyed in the harbour of Navarino, on the west coast of Morea, by the combined British, French and Russian squadrons.
p.294
The British interest was, at first, more indirect. Their statesmen saw the Ottoman estate primarily as a vast landed property interposed between the homeland and the British dominions in India. They were concerned lest the dismemberment of the estate might lead to the interposition of some unfriendly European rival. And so their policy concentrated on the preservation of the estate in the hands of its existing owners. Their expulsion of the French from Egypt was motivated, not by any desire to replace French by British influence there, but by a determination, in the short term, to keep the Ottoman Empire from falling under the influence of the French enemy, and, in the long term, to keep the Ottoman estate intact.
The course of the Napoleonic wars, which involved the establishment of a predominant British naval presence in the Mediterranean, encouraged the growth of new British trading interests in Egypt and in the Levant generally. Given a head-start during the war as a result of British naval predominance, these trading interests became firmly established, in Egypt particularly, during the 1820s. Flourishing as they did under Mohamed Ali’s monopolies, these trading interests were frequently at odds with the official British policy of subordinating Mohamed Ali to his Ottoman suzerain.
This official British policy of preserving the sovereign independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was assisted by the climate of political opinion prevailing in Europe immediately after the Napoleonic wars. It was exemplified by the Holy Alliance, and characterized by Metternich’s determination to preserve from any nationalist or revolutionary upsets the status quo restored at Vienna after the upheavals of the Napoleonic years. The preservation of this precarious balance depended, inter alia, on the observance of the Powers of a self-denying ordinance in respect to the Ottoman estate.
But the pressures operating in favour of dismemberment were tremendous. Five years after the Congress of Vienna the Greek War of Independence broke out. Long before it was over, Mohamed Ali in Egypt had become more powerful than, and openly ambitious to overthrow, his nominal suzerain. The Ottoman Sultan and Sublime Porte were unable, of their own motion, to withstand these pressures. Gradually, unwillingly, but inevitably, they were forced to watch the affairs of the Empire passing into the hands of the Concert of European Powers, who were torn between a common desire to keep the Ottoman estate intact and a determination, on the part of each member of the Concert, to grab for themselves a share of that estate in the likely event of the pressures in favour of dismemberment proving to be uncontrollable. This determination naturally led to an increase in the weight of these pressures.
During the years covered by the Arabian and Sudanese campaigns, British commercial interests in Egypt flourished. In 1817 Salt reported that, for the year September 1815 to September 1816, 125 British merchant vessels had arrived at Alexandria and 214 merchant vessels had sailed from Alexandria for English ports. This increasing British commercial interest was due less to the enterprise of the Levant Company than to the initiatives of individual British merchants. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the Levant Company had lost much of its importance. In Egypt, the end of the old ghetto-like existence which the foreign communities had led under the Mamluks, and the opening of the country to European influences, had rendered the old ‘factory’ system obsolete. And, in English commercial thinking, the old system of monopolistic trading companies was being replaced by a concept of individual free enterprise. Politically, too, the atmosphere had changed as a result of the subordination of commercial to political interests in the Ottoman Empire. In the eighteenth century the British Ambassador at Constantinople had been appointed jointly by the British government and the Levant Company, and the British consuls in the Ottoman Empire had been nominated and paid by the Levant Company. But, as the affairs of the Ottoman Empire became more and more involved in European politics, and in British imperial interests, this became an unworkable arrangement. As from 1804 the Levant Company ceased to have any voice in the nomination of or in the instructions given to, the British Ambassador. In 1825 the Levant Company surrendered its Charter to the Crown and its existence came to an end.
Henry Salt, who was much more favourably disposed towards the Viceroy than Missett, arriving in Egypt as Consul-General at the beginning of 1816. This war was by that time over and the task of the British Representative was no longer dominated by the necessity for discovering and combating real or supposed French intrigues. In his instructions he had been told to use his best endeavours ‘to maintain all the privileges and immunities of the Levant Company and to preserve inviolate the capitulations which already exist in favour of their trade and enlarge the same as far as possible’. He was also instructed to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the country and to ‘maintain a good understanding with the agents of all Powers and endeavour to penetrate into any designs that may be entertained by them prejudicial to the interests of HM’. He was enjoined to keep in close touch with HM’s Ambassador at Constantinople, with HM’s Minister at Naples, with British Resident at Corfu, with the Governor of Malta, and with the C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet. This is an indication of the extent to which the British government had come to regard Egypt as part of the Mediterranean world.
Over the next few years Salt, in accordance with his instructions, was to complain and protest against the incidence of the monopolies and against various infringements of the Capitulations. But, as he pointed out to the British Ambassador, the merchants’ complaints were really invalid in that, if Ottoman rule in Egypt had been effective and the Capitulations strictly applied, the export of most of the monopolized products would, under Ottoman regulations, have been forbidden altogether, and that the cotton, indigo and sugar subject to monopoly would not have been produced in Egypt at all but for Mohamed Ali’s enterprise. The English merchants, like most businessmen, wanted it both ways; they wanted, on the one hand, the advantages, without the disadvantages, of being under direct Ottoman rule and, on the other hand, the advantages, without the disadvantages, which they actually derived from being under Mohammed Ali’s rule. As Salt put it, they seemed to think that the Capitulations acted as a positive prohibition against the Ruler of the country standing between the merchants and the cultivators. He expressed the view, and Stratford Canning, the Ambassador, agreed with him, that ‘it could not been intended by the Porte to concede the right of control over its own regulations’, and pointed out that Mohamed Ali would have been within his rights to prohibit the export of cotton (in which the British merchants were principally interested) altogether.
In fact, a great many extensions to the extraterritorial privileges enjoyed under the Capitulations were introduced for the benefit of European residents and those living under the protection of European Consuls. Article 16 of the Capitulations treaty with Britain was interpreted as providing, not only that all criminal cases, as well as civil disputes, involving European nationals were exempted from the local jurisdiction, but that all civil cases in which a European national was a defendant against an Ottoman subject should be tried in the defendant’s Consular Court. Salt reported that ‘European subjects accused even of robbery or forgery are by usage handed over to the Consul…It would be considered a great disgrace to his country and to the European character in general should the Consul give up a debtor or criminal to the local authority, as the strict sense of Capitulations would seem to prescribe.’ He went on to explain that this ‘established usage’ had arisen ‘out of the base and mercenary character of Turkish Courts of Justice’, and because ‘the affairs of merchants and shipping are not, as in Europe, regulated by any formal law, but all is decided according to the caprice and, often, the interested maliciousness of the local authority’. The extension of the Capitulations described by Salt did to a great extent shield the foreign merchant community increased greatly in numbers and affluence. A petition addressed to the Consul-General by the British merchant houses of Alexandria in 1825 indicates that there were 15 such houses. During the year September 1823 – September 1824 goods to the value of £178,723 were exported from Egypt to Great Britain against imports worth £35, 198 from Great Britain to Egypt. The comparable figures for all Mediterranean ports were £41,080 exported from Egypt and £27,242 imported into Egypt. Much of the exports, particularly to Great Britain, consisted of cotton, the cultivation of which as an export crop was being promoted by Mohamed Ali. Egypt’s ‘favourable trade balance’ as revealed by these figures, was no doubt assisted by Mohamed Ali’s monopolies, which enabled him to maximise export and minimise import prices, and resulted in a regular flow of specie into Egypt, which Mohamed Ali needed for paying the troops engaged in his numerous and expensive wars.
p.158
This was Salt’s last important despatch. At the end of October, just before leaving Egypt for sick leave to Europe, he died. John Barker, British Consul in Alexandria, took over as Consul-General. Before he had done so, the resources of diplomacy had been overtaken by the arbritrament of war. On 20 October 1827 the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets were attacked and destroyed in the harbour of Navarino, on the west coast of Morea, by the combined British, French and Russian squadrons.
p.294
The British interest was, at first, more indirect. Their statesmen saw the Ottoman estate primarily as a vast landed property interposed between the homeland and the British dominions in India. They were concerned lest the dismemberment of the estate might lead to the interposition of some unfriendly European rival. And so their policy concentrated on the preservation of the estate in the hands of its existing owners. Their expulsion of the French from Egypt was motivated, not by any desire to replace French by British influence there, but by a determination, in the short term, to keep the Ottoman Empire from falling under the influence of the French enemy, and, in the long term, to keep the Ottoman estate intact.
The course of the Napoleonic wars, which involved the establishment of a predominant British naval presence in the Mediterranean, encouraged the growth of new British trading interests in Egypt and in the Levant generally. Given a head-start during the war as a result of British naval predominance, these trading interests became firmly established, in Egypt particularly, during the 1820s. Flourishing as they did under Mohamed Ali’s monopolies, these trading interests were frequently at odds with the official British policy of subordinating Mohamed Ali to his Ottoman suzerain.
This official British policy of preserving the sovereign independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was assisted by the climate of political opinion prevailing in Europe immediately after the Napoleonic wars. It was exemplified by the Holy Alliance, and characterized by Metternich’s determination to preserve from any nationalist or revolutionary upsets the status quo restored at Vienna after the upheavals of the Napoleonic years. The preservation of this precarious balance depended, inter alia, on the observance of the Powers of a self-denying ordinance in respect to the Ottoman estate.
But the pressures operating in favour of dismemberment were tremendous. Five years after the Congress of Vienna the Greek War of Independence broke out. Long before it was over, Mohamed Ali in Egypt had become more powerful than, and openly ambitious to overthrow, his nominal suzerain. The Ottoman Sultan and Sublime Porte were unable, of their own motion, to withstand these pressures. Gradually, unwillingly, but inevitably, they were forced to watch the affairs of the Empire passing into the hands of the Concert of European Powers, who were torn between a common desire to keep the Ottoman estate intact and a determination, on the part of each member of the Concert, to grab for themselves a share of that estate in the likely event of the pressures in favour of dismemberment proving to be uncontrollable. This determination naturally led to an increase in the weight of these pressures.