Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/784

760 760 EGYPT this politic stop ; while under his auspices the &quot; savans &quot; of the Institute of Egypt collected the valuable mass of information embodied in the &quot; great French work,&quot; the Description de Vfigypte. On the death of Kle ber, General Menou succeeded to the command, and although he afterwards conducted the defence of the country with much valour, yet to his in judicious administration, and his want of military talent, we must mainly ascribe the determination of the British Government to attempt the expulsion of the French from Egypt, and the rapid success of the campaign that ensued. On the 2d of March 1801 an army under Sir Ralph Abercromby arrived in Aboo-Keer Bay, and made good a landing in the face of a well-disposed French force, which offered every possible resistance. The memorable battle of Alexandria, in which Abercromby fell, decided the fate of the war. A bold march, executed with talent, effected the capitulation of Cairo ; Alexandria surrendered on the 1st of September, and the French sailed from the shores of Egypt in the course of that month. 1 General Hutchinson had taken the command of the English expedition, after wards reinforced by a detachment from India under General Baird ; and the army of the grand vizir, and that of the capitan-pasha, with the troops of Ibrahim Bey (Murad having died of the plague), had co-operated in the measures which led to the evacuation of the country by Menou. The history now requires that we should mention the early career of a man who subsequently ruled the destinies of Egypt for a period of nearly forty years. Mehemet Ali Pasha was born in A.H. 1182 (A.D. 1768-9) at Cavalla, a small sea-port town of Albania. On the death of his father, in early life, he was brought up in the house of the governor of the town, who, as a reward for military prowess, gave him his daughter in marriage. By her lie had, it is said, his three eldest sons, Ibrahim, 2 Toosoon, and Ismail. Having attained the rank of buluk-bashee (or head of a body of infantry), he became a dealer in tobacco, until, in his thirty-third year, he was despatched to Egypt with his patron s son, Ali Agha, and 300 men, the contingent furnished by his native place to the Turkish expedition against the French ; and soon after his arrival in that country lie succeeded, on the return of Ali Agha, to the command, with the nominal rank of beeiibashee (or chief of a thousand men). Soon after the evacuation of Egypt by the French, that unfortunate country became the scene of more severe troubles, in consequence of the unwarrantable attempts of the Turks to destroy the power of the Glmzz. In defiance of promises to the English Government, orders were trans mitted from Constantinople to Hoseyn Pasha, the Turkish high admiral, to ensnare and put to death the principal beys. Invited to an entertainment, they were, according to the Egyptian contemporary historian El-Gabartee, attacked on board the flag-ship; Sir Robert Wilson and M. Mengin, however, state that they were fired on, in open boats, in the bay of Aboo-Keer. They offered an heroic resistance, but were overpowered, and some made prisoners, some killed, while some, including the afterwards celebrated Osman Bey El-Bardeesee, escaped in a boat, and sought refuge with the English, who at that time occupied Alexandria. General Hutchinson, informed of this treachery, imme diately assumed threatening measures against the Turks, and in consequence, the killed, wounded, and prisoners 1 Very many of the French had either married Muslim women, or bought concubine slaves of the same faith, whom, on their departure, they left behind them ; and these unfortunates were forthwith tied up in sacks and drowned. 2 Ibrahim is, however, believed by many, or most, to have been the wife s son by a former husband. [HISTOEY. were given up to him. Such was the commencement of the disastrous struggle between the Memlooks and the Turks. Mohammad Khusruf was the first pasha after the expulsion of the French. The form of government, how ever, was not the same as that before the French invasion, for the Ghuzz were not reinstated. The pasha, and through him the sultan, endeavoured on several occasions either to ensnare them or to beguile them into submission ; but these efforts failing, Mohammad Khusruf took the field, and a Turkish detachment 14,000 strong, despatched against them to Demenhoor, whither they had descended from Upper Egypt, was defeated by a small force under El-Elfee; or, as Mengin says, by 800 men left by El-Flfee under the command of El-Bardeesee. Their ammunition and guns fell into the hands of the Memlooks. In March 1803 the British evacuated Alexandria, and Mohammad Bey El-Elfee accompanied them to England to consult respecting the means to be adopted for restoring the former power of the Ghuzz. About six weeks after, the Arnaoot (or Albanian) soldiers in the service of Khusruf tumultuously demanded their pay, and surrounded the house of the defterdar, who in vain appealed to the pasha to satisfy their claims. The latter opened fire from the artillery of his palace on the insurgent soldiery in the house of the defterdar, across the Ezbekeeyeh. The citizens of Cairo, accustomed to such occurrences, immediately closed their shop?, and the doors of the several quarters, and every man who possessed any weapon armed himself. The tumult continued all the day, and the next morning a body of troops sent out by the pasha failed to quell it. Tahir, the commander of the Albanians, then repaired to the citadel, gained admittance through an embrasure, and, having obtained possession of it, began to cannon the pasha over the roofs of the intervening houses, am* then descended with guns to the Ezbekeeyeh, and laid close siege to the palace. On the following day, Mohammad Khusruf made good his escape, with his women and servants and his regular troops, and fled to Damietta by the river. This revolt marks the commencement of the rise of Mehemet Ali to power in Egypt, and of the breach between the Arnaoots and Turks which ultimately led to the expulsion of the latter. Tahir Pasha assumed the government, but in twenty- three days he met with his death from exactly the same cause as that of the overthrow of his predecessor. lie refused the pay of certain of the Turkish troops, and was immediately assassinated. A desperate conflict ensued between the Albanians and Turks ; and the palace was set on fire and plundered. The masters of Egypt were now split into these two factions, animated with the fiercest animosity against each other. Mehemet Ali became the head of the former, but his party was the weaker, and he therefore entered into an alliance with Ibrahim Bey, and Osman Bey El-Bardeesee. A certain Ahmad Pasha, who was about to proceed to a province in Arabia, of which he had been appointed governor, was raised to the important post of pasha of Egypt, through the influence of the Turks and the favour of the sheykhs; but Mehemet Ali, who with his Albanians held the citadel, refused to assent to their choice; the Memlooks moved over from El-Geezeh, and Ahmad Pasha betook himself to the mosque of Ez- Zahir, which the French had converted into a fortress. He was compelled to surrender by the Albanians; the two chiefs of the Turks who killed Tahir Pasha were taken with him and put to death, and he himself was detained a prisoner. In consequence of the alliance between Mehemet Ali and El-Bardeesee, the Albanians gave the citadel over to the Memlooks; nnd soon after, these allies inarched against Khusruf Pasha, who having been joined by a con-