Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/374

 362 MEHEMET ALI MEIGGS inces have since remained subject to Egypt. The captives taken in Sennaar and Kordofan were trained by French officers, and in 1823 the army thus organized amounted to 24,000 men. In 1824 Ibrahim Pasha was sent with a power- ful fleet to assist the Turks in suppressing the Greek insurrection. The fleet was engaged at Navarino (1827), and Ibrahim supported the contest till in 1828 the European powers compelled him to evacuate the Morea. In 1831 Mehemet Ali sent an army of 38,000 men into Syria under command of Ibrahim. This step brought him into immediate con- flict with his suzerain the sultan, to whom he still professed allegiance. Ibrahim took Acre after a long siege, and rapidly overran Syria, defeating the Turks in a great battle at Horns in July, 1832. He then advanced into Asia Minor, and at Konieh encountered the grand vizier Reshid Pasha with 60,000 men, his own army being less than 30,000. The Turks were routed, Reshid was made prisoner, and Ibrahim was within six days' march of Con- stantinople, when the European powers inter- vened and compelled Mehemet Ali, in May, 1833, to accept a treaty by which the whole of Syria and the district of Adana in Asia Minor were ceded to him, besides the island of Can- dia, which he had formerly received for his ser- vices in Greece. The sultan was not disposed to submit quietly to the losses inflicted by his re- bellious vassal ; and in June, 1839, after long preparation, the Turkish fleet sailed for Egypt, and an army of 80,000 men commanded by Hafiz Pasha invaded Syria. It was met by Ibrahim with 46,000 men at Mzib, June 24, and utterly routed in less than two hours. Hardly had the news of this triumph reached Alexan- dria when the Egyptian fleet entered that port, bringing with it the whole Turkish fleet, which had through treachery surrendered with- out a battle. The Turkish empire was again preserved from destruction by the interven- tion in 1840 of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, although France, under the short ministry of Thiers, strongly favored Mehemet Ali. Alexandria was blockaded, and a Brit- ish fleet bombarded and captured Beyrout and Acre. Terrified by these vigorous demonstra- tions, Mehemet Ali early in 1841 accepted terms of peace dictated by the allies, by which the pashalic of Egypt was secured to him and his descendants, on condition of paying one quarter of his clear revenues to the sultan as tribute, restoring to him his fleet and the Syrian provinces, and limiting his own army to 18,000 men. Henceforth Mehemet Ali de- voted himself to the internal improvement of Egypt. The administration of the government was reformed on European models and under European advice. With few exceptions all former usages were destroyed, and an entirely new system of government was formed. Cot- ton was largely cultivated, and many exten- sive manufactures were created. In 1847 Me- hemet Ali for the first time visited Constan- tinople, where he was well received, .and had the rank of vizier conferred upon him. In 1848 he became imbecile from age, and his son Ibrahim was appointed viceroy in his stead; but the latter died two months afterward while his father yet lived, and was succeeded by his nephew Abbas Pasha. MEIIIL, Etienne Henri, a French composer, born at Givet in the Ardennes, June 24, 1763, died in Paris, Oct. 18, 1817. He was of hum- ble extraction, and having shown a strong taste for music was taken to Paris at the age of 16, and instructed by Gluck. He wrote three or four entire operas, but did not appear before the public as a composer until 1790, when his Euphrosine et Coradin, for which Hoffmann wrote the text, was produced with great success. His Stratonice (1792) established his reputation, and his national hymn, Le chant du depart, af- ter Ch6nier's text, gave him a wide popularity, and was followed by similar songs. Critics complained of a lack of graceful melodies in his operas, and of a dryness and monotony in the harmony and accompaniments. In his opera Uthal (1806), a work of great vigor written upon an Ossianic subject, he excluded the vio- lins from the orchestra, substituting the vio- las. In his masterpiece, Joseph (1807), he vin- dicated his claim to be ranked among great composers, and it has frequently been per- formed in England as an oratorio. He com- posed in all 42 operas, besides ballet music and instrumental pieces, including the Ouverture du jeune Henri, an admirable specimen of de- scriptive music. He was a member of the in- stitute, an inspector of the conservatory, and professor of composition at the royal school of music and declamation. MEIGGS, Henry, an American merchant, born in Catskill, K Y., in 1811. He began business as a contractor in Boston, removed thence to New York, made a fortune in the lumber busi- ness, and lost it in the crisis of 1837, but re- covered from bankruptcy in two years. In 1848 he sailed in a vessel loaded with lumber for San Francisco, where he sold the cargo for 20 times its cost. He next built a wharf and a saw mill on the bay, and sent 500 men into the woods to fell trees. His immense business was prostrated by the panic of 1854, and to save himself he resorted to irregular proceed- ings, in consequence of which he departed secretly by sea with his family, Oct. 5. He was next heard of as builder of bridges on the Valparaiso and Santiago railroad in Chili. In 1858 he contracted with the Chilian govern- ment to complete the road in four years, for $12,000,000. He finished it in two years, and his net profits were $1,326,000. In 1867 he contracted to build a railway from Mollendo to Arequipa, Peru, which he completed on Jan. 1, 1871, making an enormous profit. He cele- brated the event with a dinner which cost $200,000, and distributed $550,000 worth of gold and silver medals. In 1870 he contracted to build six other railways in Peru for $125-