He is best known for his role in the Churchill affair and surrendering an Ottoman fleet to Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1839 during the Egyptian–Ottoman War.
In 1834, Fevzi Pasha was assigned to lead the Ottoman delegation which negotiated the Treaty of Saint Petersburg with the Russian Empire.
The crisis began when British journalist William Nosworthy Churchill was imprisoned in the Imperial Arsenal after accidentally wounding a local child with his gun while out hunting in Kadıköy.
The Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs, Akif Pasha, initially rejected Ponsonby's demand but changed his mind upon being informed that Churchill had been brutally assaulted by a local mob.
Academic Nedim İpek suggests that Lord Ponsonby's attempts to remove Fevzi Pasha was primarily motivated by a desire to curtail the increasing levels of Russian influence over the Ottoman Empire following the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople and 1833 Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi.