ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most persistent of all theories concerning Palmerston’s foreign policy was that which held to the view that he was an agent of the Russian Empire. The most well-known individual to propound these views was David Urquhart. In 1839 the dying Ottoman Sultan Mahmoud launched an attack to reconquer Syria and, possibly, Egypt, and when this failed, he appealed to his friends, Russia and Britain, for help. Palmerston, seeing that Russia and France were about to take opposite sides, called all the great powers together for a conference. It was the agents of Russia herself that propagated the falsehood of Mehemet Ali being secretly encouraged by the Sultan, and they also used their efforts to raise the impression that France and England did the same, that the army of Ibrahim might be a check on the ambitious interference of the Russian Cabinet at Constantinople.
