Ibrahim Pasha,
Who Had In The Meanwhile Regained The Pashalik Of Aleppo, Was To Receive
That Sum From Them, And He Had So Well Played His Game, That The
Janissaries Still Thought Him Their Secret Friend.
The principal chiefs,
trusting to Ibrahim’s assurances, came to the town for the purpose of
paying down the money; they were a few days afterwards arrested, and it
was generally believed that Ibrahim would order them the same night to
be strangled.
In Turkey however, there are always hopes as long as the
purse is not exhausted. The prisoners engaged Mohammed, Ibrahim’s
beloved son, to intercede in their favour; they paid him for that
service one thousand zequins in advance, and promised as much more: and
he effectually extorted from his father a promise not to kill any of
them. It is said that Ibrahim foretold his son that the time would come
when he would repent of his intercession. A short time afterwards
Ibrahim was nominated a second time to the Pashalik of Damascus, which
[p.651] became vacant by Djezzar’s death, in 1804. His prisoners were
obliged to follow him to Damascus; from whence they found means to open
a correspondence with the Emir Beshir, the chief of the Druses, and to
prevail upon him to use all his interest with Ibrahim to effect their
deliverance. Ibrahim stood at that time in need of the Emir’s
friendship; he had received orders from the Porte to seize upon
Djezzar’s treasures at Akka, and to effect this the co-operation of the
Druse chief was absolutely necessary.
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