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The undersigned has the honour to renew to M. Guizot the assurances of his most distinguished consideration. Signé: PALMERSTON. Foreign Office, 9th sept. 1840.
The undersigned, Her Majesty's principal secretary of State for foreign affairs, in accordance with what was agreed upon between himself and M. Guizot, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary from the King of the French at this court, in their recent interview, has the honour to transmit to M. Guizot an extract from a despatch received by Her Majesty's Government a few days ago from Lord Ponsonby, together with a copy of the inclosure therein referred to.
Her Majesty's Government was convinced, even before the undersigned had the honour of showing these papers to M. Guizot, that the message intended to be conveyed to the Porte by M. de Pontois, must have been much altered by the person who delivered it, or else that M. de Pontois must have made such a communication entirely without instructions or authority from his own Government, and indeed in direct opposition to the spirit of the instructions which he had received; because the language used upon this occasion by M. Pontois was directly at variance with the language which has been held by the French Government to Her Majesty's ambassador at Paris, by M. Guizot to Her Majesty's Government in London, and, as far as Her Majesty's Government are informed, by the French agents at Alexandria to Méhémet Ali.
The undersigned therefore in transmitting to M. Guizot the accompanying papers, in order that they may be made known to the French Government, begs to assure M. Guizot that he makes the communication not in consequence of any doubt which Her Majesty's Government entertain of the sincerity and good faith of the Government of France, but because it is fitting that, in a matter of such deep importance to the peace of Europe, the French Government should know how much the language which is reported to have been used by one of his diplomatic agents differs from that which the French Government itself has held.
The undersigned has great pleasure in acknowledging that the conviction thus felt by Her Majesty's Government has been confirmed by the belief expressed to him by M. Guizot upon this matter, on which however M. Guizot stated that he had received no information from his own Government, and of which he knew nothing but what the undersigned had laid before him.
For, at Paris, M. Thiers, on his return not long ago from the meeting hold at the chateau d'Eu, assured Earl Granville that the strictest orders had been sent to the French admirals in the Levant to avoid any thing which might lead to collision between French and British ships of war; in London M. Guizot, both before and after his visit to the chateau d'Eu, has always stated to the undersigned that the armaments of France are purely precautionary, and in no respect whatever aggressive; that France intends to remain for the present entirely quiet; but thinking that the measures which the four powers are about to take in the Levant may by possibility lead to events which might affect the general balance of power, or alter the state of possessions of the powers of Europe, or in some way or other bear upon the direct interests of France, the French Government had deemed it right to place himself in an attitude of observation; and at Alexandria the French agents are understood to have declared to Méhémet Ali that France has no intention whatever of taking up arms in his support.
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