Note 127 — Chapter XX

Viscount Palmerston to Lieutenant-Colonel Napier.

(Extract.)

Foreign Office, May 14, 1841.

I have to instruct you, immediately on the receipt of this despatch, to proceed to Alexandria to demand from Mehemet Ali the release of the Syrian soldiers, whom he promised Sir Charles Napier to dismiss; and you will accompany those soldiers back to Syria.

I have applied to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to provide you with a passage on board the steam-vessel which conveys the mail from Gibraltar to Malta; and the Admiral at Malta will be instructed to send you on to Alexandria, and also to make arrangements for conveying the Syrian soldiers, when released by Mehemet Ali, from Egypt to the coast of Syria.

You will report your proceedings in execution of this instruction directly to me, and also to Colonel Bridgeman, or the officer commanding the British detachments on shore in Syria, to whose orders you will be subject while employed on this service; and who will be instructed to direct you to return to your regiment when the service is completed.

I inclose a despatch to Colonel Hodges, directing him to join you in demanding from Mehemet Ali the release of these Syrians; and you will deliver the same to Colonel Hodges, if he should be at Alexandria, when you arrive there. But you will not delay making the demand, if Colonel Hodges should not have arrived.