There are various letters between Ibrahim and his father to show how they tried to delay work on the expedition and to confuse the various British officials in matters related to the project. See, for example, S/5/47/1/547 on 14 Z 1250/13 April 1835 from Mehmed Ali to Ibrahim in which he tells him frankly that he does not know what to do about continued British requests for assistance in this matter. His son's reply is in Sham 31/7, on 7 M 1251/5 May 1835. In this letter Ibrahim conjectured that the heavy equipment which he heard the British were downloading on the Mediterranean coast and moving across the desert to the Euphrates was needed to build a military outpost to control Baghdad. … Alternatively, he suggested to his father, the British might be interested in simply having a fortress to keep their equipment in. “In this case,” he added, “we can suggest that we keep this equipment for them and try to convince them to give up the idea.” It appears, therefore, that the political aspect of the whole expedition, that of preventing a confrontation between Mehmed Ali and the Sultan which it was feared would prompt Mahmud to ask again for Russian help (see Ingram, Great Game, pp. 292–9), was not entirely lost on Ibrahim and his father.

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1659