Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/611

Rh A L I A L I 573 district. Afterwards lie was elected to the elevated station of one of the governors of provinces. Deprived of his protector by death, and engaging in the dangerous intrigues that pave the way to power in an unstable government, he procured his own banishment to Upper Egypt. Here he spent two years in maturing his schemes for future great ness ; and in 1766, returning to Cairo, he either slew or expelled the beys, and seized the reigns of government. Emboldened by success, he rescued himself from the power of the Porte, coined money in his own name, and assumed the rank of sultan of Egypt. Occupied in more important concerns, the Porte made no vigorous opposition to his measures, and Ali seized the opportunity to recover a part of the Said, or Upper Egypt, which had been taken pos session of by an Arab sheik. He next sent out a fleet from Suez, which, seizing upon Djedda, entered the port of Mecca; while a body of cavalry, commanded by Mahomet Bey, his favourite, took and plundered Mecca itself. Hav ing formed an alliance in 1770 with the Sheik Daher, a rebel against the Porte in Syria, he aimed at the conquest of all Syria and Palestine. He first endeavoured to secure Gaza ; then his army, forming a junction with that of Daher at Acre, advanced to Damascus. There, on the Gth of June 1771, a battle was fought with the Turkish pashas, and Mahomet and Daher, Ali s generals, routed them with great slaughter. The latter instantly took pos session of Damascus, and the castle itself had also capitu lated, when Mahomet xinexpectedly hastened back to Egypt with all his Mamelukes. Some ascribe this strange conduct to an impression made upon Mahomet by the Turkish agents, and others to a report of the death of Ali Bey. Although unsuccessful, Ali never lost sight of his favourite object ; and Mahomet, losing his confidence, was forced to save his life by exile. Mahomet, however, quickly returned with an army, and drove Ali Bey from Cairo. In this unfortunate state of affairs Ali fled to Daher, and, combining their forces, they attacked the Turkish commander at Sidon, and came off victorious, although the Turkish army was three times their number. After a siege of eight months, they next took the town of Jaffa. Deceived by letters from Cairo, which were only intended to ensnare him, and stimulated by his recent victories, Ali returned to Cairo. Entering the deserts which divide Gaza from Egypt, he was furiously attacked by a thousand chosen Mamelukes led on by Murad Bey, who was enamoured of Ali s wife, and had obtained the promise of her, provided that he could take Ali captive. Ali was wounded, made prisoner, and carried to Mahomet. He died three days after, from the effects either of poison or of his wounds. ALI PASHA, surnamed Arslan or &quot; The Lion,&quot; was born at Tepelini, a village of Albania, on the Voyutza, at the foot of the Klissoura Mountains, in 1741. He belonged to the Toske tribe, and his ancestors had for some years held the title of Bey of Tepelini, this dignity having become hereditary in his family. His grandfather fell in 1716 at the siege of Corfu, which was then held by the Venetians. His father, who died when Ali was in his fourteenth year, is represented by most authorities as a man of amiable character and peaceful habits, who was despoiled of his territories by the chiefs that lived around him ; but his mother was a woman of fierce and unyield ing disposition. Inciting her son to recover the posses sions of his father, she roused in him a spirit of cruelty and aggression, tempered, however, by a considerable amount of cunning and foresight, which bore bitter fruit in his riper years. Many romantic stories are told of Ali s adventures at the outset of his career, but the only facts (1 iat are known with certainty are, that after living in the mountains as a robber for some years, and enduring great privations, he made himself master of his beylik of Tepe lini by the aid of his associates. He is said to have then murdered his brother and imprisoned his mother, who died shortly after, on a charge of attempting to poison him. In order to increase and establish his power, he then made overtures to the Turkish government, by whose orders he attacked and defeated the pasha of Scutari, then in rebellion against the sultan, and put to death Selim, pasha of Delvino. For these acts he was rewarded by being placed in possession of the whole of his father s territories, and he was appointed lieutenant to the Derwend- pacha of Rum-ili, an officer who was charged with the suppression of brigandage and highway robbery in the district. AH, however, by permitting the robbers to go unchecked in return for a share of the spoil, brought his superior to disgrace and death, but escaped himself by sending bribes to the ministers of the sultan. For his services in the field in the war between Prussia and Turkey in 1787 he was appointed pasha of Trikala in Thessaly, and Derwend-pasha of Rum-ili. He soon cleared the country of robbers, mainly by summoning to his standard all who were willing to serve under him, and by their aid he took forcible possession of Joannina in 1788. By means of the powerful body of troops at his command, and the wise measures that he introduced, he wrought considerable amelioration in the districts under his charge, and the Porte seeing this, confirmed him in the pashalik of Joannina. His whole attention was now turned to the aggrandisement of his territory and personal power. He obtained possession of the western part of Northern Greece, or Livadia as it was then called ; but was baffled for many years in his attempts to occupy the country of the Suliotcs in the south-west of Epirus. These brave and hardy mountaineers at last, in 1803, agreed to evacuate their country, and were treacherously massacred by Ali while on their way to the coast to embark for Corfu. When the French took Venice in 1797, Ali, by pretending admiration for the principles of the revolution, induced Napoleon to send him engineers, by whose aid he fortified Joannina ; but failing to obtain from him, as he had hoped, the Venetian ports on the seaboard of Epirus, he took occasion, after the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt, to lay siege to Prevesa, which was surrendered by the French troops. Ali had now a difficult part to play, but he succeeded so well with his master the sultan, that he was confirmed in the possession of the whole of Albania northwards from Epirus to Montenegro, over which he had asserted his autho rity, partly by intrigue and partly by force of arms. He also held the high position of governor of Rum-ili for a brief period (1799), during which he amassed a large sum of money by his extortions. The cruel massacre of the inhabitants of Gardiki, for an alleged insult to his mother and sister about forty years previously, was perpe trated about this time. He contrived to make his peace with the French in spite of the capture of Prevesa, and in 1807 once more entered into alliance with them, with the view of obtaining Parga, which he had attempted to capture, but without success, in 1800. Napoleon, however, neglected to secure Parga for him at the peace of Tilsit, and the fortress remained in the hands of the French until it was taken in 1814 by the English, who gave it up in 1817, ostensibly to the sultan, but in reality to Ali. Ali was now at the height of his power : he was almost supreme over Albania, Epirus, part of Thessaly, and the western part of Northern Greece; while one of his sons held the pashalik of the Morea. So powerful was he that, though he was nearly eighty years of age, the Porte feared and hated him, and desired his death, but could find no good pretext for taking measures against him until