Life of Ahmad — Page 28
WORLD PREPARATIONS as 28 the Treaty of London. Her lessened prestige had already received a severe blow from the bombardment and capture of Algiers by the French in 1830; and her position was further embarrassed by revolts in Bosnia and Albania, when news reached Constantinople that Muhammad Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, had invaded Syria in 1831. He was looked upon as the champion of Islam against the infidel caliph. He became master of the holy cities along with Syria. Turkish power simply collapsed before him. On the other side the 'Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi', in 1833, seemed to place Turkey wholly in the power of Russia. British rule, under which the Promised Messiah as was destined to undertake the regeneration of the world, was by the time of his birth established in many parts of the world. In the West the British had acquired British Guiana, Trinidad, Alberta and Manitoba; in the South they had taken Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, Ascension, South Africa, Mauritius and Tristan da Cunha; and in the East their empire had extended to Malta, Aden, India, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. The triumph of the spirit of toleration in religious matters, so essential to the work of the Promised Messiah as , was completed in Great Britain when the Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed in 1829. This measure was based on the principle of the abolition of discrimination in civil matters and the equality of political rights. The Catholics, on the other hand, were