The Policy Of The Porte Is To Flatter
And Load With Honours Those Whom She Cannot Ruin, And To Wait
For some
lucky accident by which she may regain her power; but, above all, to
avoid a formal rupture, which
Would only serve to expose her own
weakness and to familiarize the Pashas and their subjects with the ideas
of rebellion. The Pashas of Damascus and of Akka continue to be dutiful
subjects of the Grand Signior in appearance; and they even send
considerable sums of money to Constantinople, to ensure the yearly
renewal of their offices. (The Pashaliks all over the Turkish dominions
are given for the term of one year only, and at the beginning of the
Mohammedan year, the Pashas receive [p.649] their confirmation or
dismissal) The Agas of Aintab, Antakia, Alexandretta, Edlip, and Shogre,
pay also for the renewal of their offices. There are a few chiefs who
have completely thrown off the mask of subjection; Kutshuk Ali, the Lord
of Badjazze openly declares his contempt of all orders from the Porte,
plunders and insults the Sultan’s officers, as well as all strangers
passing through his mountains, and with a force of less than two hundred
men, and a territory confined to the half ruined town of Badjazze, in
the gulf of Alexandretta, and a few miles of the surrounding mountains,
his father and himself have for the last thirty years defied all the
attempts of the neighbouring Pashas to subdue them.
The inhabitants of Aleppo have been for several years past divided into
two parties; the Sherifs (the real or pretended descendants of the
Prophet), and the Janissaries.
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