The pasha seems to have been convinced that the whole affair was the work of a small number of agitators , and to have determined to inflict a punishment which all the protests of all the powers could not revoke , so restricted as to give none an excuse for intervention , but so extended as to give the Candiotes a sharp lesson .sx If so , he reckoned justly , for he had no further trouble in Crete .sx The administration of Crete had been entrusted to Mustafa Pasha , who continued to exercise it during practically the whole of Muhammad 'Ali's possession of the island .sx The consuls of the English , French and Russian governments all agree that his management was mild , popular , and in a high degree successful .sx Of course he was not able wholly to quench political discontent .sx Crete was still a part of Grecia Irridenta .sx There were always societies in Greece eager to add the island to their national kingdom .sx There were always in the island a number of persons who dreamt of reunion with their fellow-countrymen or the establishment of some sort of independence .sx But so long as Mustafa Pasha ruled Crete , it remained quiet and contented .sx The Russian consul reports that taxes were paid with-out resistance , that complete tranquillity reigned , that the municipal councils were always ready to do as the governor wished .sx In 1838 he was ordered to Syria to take command of troops sent to suppress an insurrection that had broken out there .sx The English consul remarks that his departure occasioned " the most spontaneous , disinterested and unequivocal marks of .sx .. affection " from every class of the people .sx When he left Canea , he was accompanied to his boat by the whole population , young and old , lamenting with tears hisdeparture and entreating him to return to them .sx ' He had in fact protected the Greeks and soothed the Muslims .sx In accordance however with his custom of believing the worst about Muhammad 'Ali's government and designs , Palmerston could not leave the island alone .sx The hanging of twenty-six Greeks and five Turks is mentioned by him " if report speaks true " as great severity and numerous executions .sx He suggested that the pasha might resign the island to the beneficent rule of the Sultan , who might be induced to bestow on it a constitution such as that existing in Samos .sx Several discussions followed between Campbell on the one hand and the pasha and his chief minister Boghoz on the other , but the latter declined absolutely the proposals made to them .sx Crete , they said with truth , was not like Samos , populated only by the Greeks .sx There lived a large body of Muslims who could not reasonably be subjected to Greek rule , while the settlement of Greeks in the island showed conclusively that the pasha's rule was neither severe , intolerant nor unjust .sx So matters remained till 1840 when the pasha lost Crete as well as Syria .sx Palmerston at once revived his former project of establishing the Samian constitution there a plan to which he seems to have been specially attached .sx Perhaps he thought that when Campbell had discussed the question with Muhammad 'Ali , it could not have been fairly presented ; Campbell must have been tactless and perhaps unconvincing ; and the pasha had of course been unwilling to make any real reform .sx But Ponsonby in fact could do no better with the Porte .sx than Campbell had done with Muhammad 'Ali .sx At Constantinople as at Cairo the Samian plan was deemed unsuitable to Crete and Ponsonby agreed .sx The Turk inhabitants , he said , could not be subjected to Greek tyranny , nor the forts occupied by Greek garrisons .sx It would mean constant rebellions , and the island would pass to Greece , or France or Russia .sx So Crete was given back to the Sultan , without the constitution which Palmerston had at one time judged so important to its well-being .sx The administration of Crete by Muhammad 'Ali deserves to be regarded as a success .sx But the same can scarcely be said of Syria , where the task was heavier , more complicated , and worse controlled .sx In Crete the Turks formed a minority , and submitted with what grace they could to the reforms which the viceroy ordered and Mustafa Pasha carried into effect .sx In Syria the population was still more divided by race and creed .sx It was intensely fanatical .sx Both main divisions were cloven by the teaching of rival sects .sx Out of a total of 1,800,000 , nearly a million were followers of the Prophet .sx The 600,000 Christians were divided between the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches ; the remainder consisted of minor groups .sx So that the Muslim majority could lord it over these small and disunited bodies with little fear of possible reprisals .sx Secular authority was disputed and defied by territorial chiefs who had ruled with little interference from the Turkish authorities .sx Above all , while Crete was sheltered from external interference by the pasha's fleet , Syria lay open to the active intrigue of the Sultan's agents and the attacks of the Sultan's forces all along a lengthy land frontier .sx The Turks had divided the region into four pashaliqs Acre , Tripoli , Damascus and Aleppo .sx But Abdullah , the gallant defender of Acre against Ibrahim,had obtained , besides Acre , Tripoli and the districts of Nablus and Jerusalem .sx But within his government were a number of chiefs who paid no obedience to his authority .sx One was the Amir Beshir , the prince of Lebanon .sx Another was the Bedouin chief Abu Ghosh , established between Gaza and Jerusalem .sx A third was Mustafa Barbar who had driven the Turkish deputy out of Tripoli and whom Abdullah had to expel by force of arms .sx In the hills of Nablus was a shaikh whose authority had been recognised by the Porte itself .sx Aleppo was torn in pieces by rival Muslim factions .sx In Damascus Christians and Jews lived in perpetual fear for their lives and goods .sx Not even the pasha himself was safe .sx " The Porte on learning that the citizens of Damascus had cut his pasha's throat , merely sent them " ' The reader of Eothen will re-member with what delight a raya saw Kinglake boldly walking along the raised footway which the true believers had been wont to reserve for themselves .sx Indeed , as the French agent Boislecomte most judiciously observed , religion in Syria occupied much the same position as race in Egypt .sx In the latter a man belonged to the ruling or the subject class according as he was born a Turk or an Arab .sx In Syria Turk and Arab stood on a common footing , and a man's degree depended on his being bred a Christian or a Muslim .sx But this solidarity of feeling within the two faiths did not extend to the desert Arabs on the east and south .sx In the days of Wahabi greatness ibn Saud in two days and a half over-ran at least 120 miles and plundered thirty villages , while the Bedouin were always raiding the settled country and driving the inhabitants west-wards , so that the eastern borderland was full of .sx deserted villages .sx Nor had the Turkish government been in any way calculated to reform these evils .sx " Everybody " , wrote Campbell with unhappy truth , " that the few pachalics of which the Porte could dispose .sx .. were put up to the highest bidder at Constantinople every year , who had no other object in view but that of making a fortune upon the poor and unfortunate population which thus became a prey to their rapacity and avarice .sx .. Hence their utter negligence in every part of the administration , their total indifference to the shameful and numerous depredations of the richer over the poorer classes , and the total absence of troops and means ( for purposes of private gain ) to repel the attacks of the surrounding Arabs .sx " Stern military rule was the first condition of restoring peace and order to this unfortunate country , and that , at all events , was what the inhabitants might rely on getting from their new ruler .sx Ibrahim was entrusted with the government of the territory which he had conquered .sx The governor of Damascus , Sharif Bey , coolly reckoned that the tranquillity of the city would not cost the citizens more than one head a month .sx Every revolt that occurred was made the occasion of disarming the guilty district .sx Every inroad of Bedouins led to swift reprisals .sx The Syrians too were not merely to be protected from themselves or their neighbours .sx They were to be taught to protect themselves .sx However averse they might be to military service , military service would be forced upon them .sx Under Ibrahim's drill-sergeants they would at least acquire habits of discipline to which they had long been strangers .sx The Syrian , like the Egyptian , conscription was cruel , capricious and corrupt .sx It was conducted , as in Egypt , by a series of haphazard seizures from which the wealthier redeemed themselves by bribing the inferior agents who had seized them .sx But it must have carried with it fortifying virtues in which the Syrian was peculiarly lacking .sx It was natural for Palmerston to condemn on moral grounds what he had political reason for disliking .sx But after the passage of a century the need for moral indignation has vanished , and later experience suggests that the Syrian would have lost little had he enjoyed a longer period of Ibrahim's government .sx As in Egypt religious toleration was enforced in a way till then completely unknown .sx Once the ulemas and theologians of Damascus waited on Ibrahim to complain that Christians were suffered to ride on horse-back and that the due distinction between Muslim and infidel was being obliterated .sx Ibrahim ironically agreed that a distinction should be kept , and proposed that in future the Muslims should ride dromedaries , which would set them high above all Christians .sx " On one tragic occasion , commemorated by Robert Curzon , Ibrahim himself attended the Miracle of the Holy Fire at Jerusalem .sx These two measures conscription and toleration incensed the whole Muslim population against the new government .sx When Marmont visited Syria in 1834 he found all the Turks very hostile to Ibrahim , although in the Ottoman provinces through which he had just passed the Turks there were quite as bitter against the Sultan .sx The English consul at Aleppo describes Syrian feelings as those of disgust and even hatred .sx This feeling was no doubt strengthened by another most disconcerting innovation the discouragement of bribery in matters of justice .sx All the English consuls in 1836 , who assuredly cannot be cited as witnesses favourable to Ibrahim's administration , are agreed on this point .sx The least favourable admits that it was diminished .sx Another believes that it still existed but in a very limited and secret way .sx A third declares that it was rigorously checked .sx All agree , though reluctantly , that justice was no longer an ideal applicable to Muslims only .sx One laments the absence of a code of laws .sx But even he recognises the establishment in the larger towns of courts , like the new courts established in Egypt , in which Jews and Christians were admitted to sit among the judges .sx The new system had indeed the merit of a wide elasticity .sx The plaintiff had the option of laying his grievances before either the old mufti's court or the chief executive official .sx If he selected the former , the sentence had to be reported to the executive government which could confirm or refuse to execute the decision .sx If a plaintiff applied to the executive official , the latter could , if the case were simple , hear and decide it himself ; if it demanded a knowledge of Islamic law , he could refer it to the mufti's court ; if it was a case of complicated accounts or commercial usage , he could refer it to the new courts .sx The system of justice contained thus a new and most important element .sx It provided that there should be a much greater probability that a non-Muslim party should receive an impartial consideration of his case .sx It is perhaps worth noting that under the older system which had been displaced the evidence of a non-Muslim was completely .sx inadmissible against a true believer .sx One of the Syrian consuls summed up the results of the establishment of Muhammad 'Ali's government as including security from arbitrary acts except in the case of the conscription security of property , a new liberty of religion , of life and of amusements , a fair distribution of taxes , and in general as near an approach to the liberty enjoyed under a free government as could be attempted .sx