One Of
Tshelebi’S Household Officers, Ibrahim Beg, Had Meanwhile Been Promoted,
Through The Friends Of His Patron At Constantinople, To The First
Dignities In The Town.
He was made Mutsellim (vice governor), and
Mohassel (chief custom house officer), and after the death of Tshelebi,
his power devolved upon Ibrahim.
This was in 1786.
Kussa Pasha, a man of probity and talents, was sent at that time as
Pasha to Aleppo. Being naturally jealous of Ibrahim Beg’s influence, he
endeavoured to get possession of his person, by ordering him to be
detained during a visit, made by Ibrahim to compliment the Pasha [p.650]
upon his arrival, for a debt which Ibrahim owed to a foreign merchant,
who had preferred his complaints to the Pasha’s tribunal. Ibrahim paid
the debt, and was no sooner out of the Pasha’s immediate reach, than he
engaged Ahmed Aga (one of the present Janissary chiefs), to enter with
him into a formal league against Kussa. The Janissaries, together with
Ibrahim’s party, attacked the Pasha’s troops; who after several days
fighting, were driven out of the town, and Ibrahim was soon afterwards
named Pasha of three tails, and for the first time Pasha of Aleppo. From
that period (1788-89) may be dated the power of the Janissaries. Ibrahim
had been the cause of their rising into consideration, but he soon found
that their party was acquiring too much strength; he therefore deemed it
necessary to countenance the Sherifs, and being a man of great talents,
he governed and plundered the town, by artfully opposing the two parties
to each other.
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