Mahmoud being now relieved from foreign dan ger, began to display those qualities of courage, energy, and political wisdom which have stamped him as one of the ablest potentates of his time. Drawn from a prison, and raised to a throne when a youth of only fifteen years of age, he was early involved in a contest with the janissaries, in which he would undoubtedly have been sacrificed, had there been a survivor of the imperial house old enough to sit upon the throne. The total dissolu tion of social order in the provinces demanded his immediate attention ; he therefore resolutely pre pared to reduce his refractory vassals to obedience, and in a few years, by vigorous and decisive mea sures, restored order and tranquillity to the greater part of his distracted empire. He abolished the hereditary pachaliks, deposed or put to death the rebellious pashas and agas, and entirely suppressed the insolent janissaries, who, under the direction and influence of the ulema, had so long held the so vereign and capital in thraldom.
In Arabia, the Wahabites had occupied the sa cred territory of Mecca and Medina. Their chief, Sahoud Abdallah, ruled over the province of Ned jed and the isles of Bahrein, and held as tributaries the lmaums of Surma and Muscat. The annual pil grimages had thus been interrupted for many years, and the faithful Mussulmans had been interdicted from paying their vows at the shrine of the pro phet. The reduction of this sect was intrusted to Mahomet Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, who despatch ed a messenger to acquaint Abdallah that he would invade his dominions, raze his capital to the ground, and lead him captive to Constantinople. Ibrahim Pacha, the son of the viceroy, led the forces of Egypt, and after two years of dangerous warfare in Arabia, accomplished the threat of his father. Abdallah was brought a prisoner to Egypt, and then transported to Constantinople, with a solicita tion from the viceroy for his pardon. But the fa naticism of the people demanded the blood of the unhappy chief, who had polluted with his sacrile gious hands the birth-place and tomb of the pro phet.
The sultan had a more difficult task in reducing the refractory pasha of Janina. This Albanian chief had risen from a very humble origin; but no sooner was he invested with the pachalik of Janina than he assumed the rank and power of an independent so vereign. By open hostilities, or by secret assassi nation and treachery, he had extended his sway over the whole of continental Greece and Epirus. His infantry were the best in the empire; and had he possessed the affections of his subjects, he might have hid defiance to the power of the porte. But his atrocities and oppression had rendered him odi ous to the Greeks; and his promises and kindness, in his hour of need, were disregarded by those who had so long suffered from his tyranny. For two
years he resisted the armies of the sultan; and when driven to his last strong-hold, the castle on the lake of Janina, he made a desperate struggle to recover his affairs. His destruction was at last accomplished through the treachery of one of his officers, who admitted the Turks into the castle, when the old paella retired into an insulated tower with his wives and treasures, and about a hundred followers. Here, with a magazine of powder under his feet, he formed and announced the terrible reso lution, that on the approach of an enemy lie would blow the whole into the air. He was however in duced, by fair promises and pledges of safety, to surrender; and thus fell into the same snare which he had often practised upon others, his death being immediately decreed by a firman of the sultan.* The reduction of Ali Pacha was retarded, and almost entirely interrupted, by an insurrection of a more formidable character, and which has wrested from the empire one of its finest provinces. The Greeks bad long borne the cruelties and thraldom of the rebellious Ali; but now throughout the con tinent and islands of their classic land, roused them selves as a united people, to break the shameful yoke under which they had groaned, and to retali ate upon their oppressors the wrongs and extortions of two hundred years. The first war-note of liberty was raised in the streets of Jassy, the capital of Moldavia. Alexander Ipsilanti, a major-general in the Russian service, in concert with Michael Suzzo, the hospodar of that province, seized upon Jassy, and at the head of 15,000 men, entered Wallachia. Confiding in the countenance and support which they expected to receive from Russia, they hastened to Bucharest; but they were arrested by an order from the emperor Alexander, who, alarmed by the very idea of a popular insurrection, declared his decided hostility to their cause. Upon this, Michael Suzzo retired from the contest; but Ipsilanti con tinued his route, and uniting his forces with a band of Wallachians, took possession of Bucharest, which he prepared to defend against the coming forces of the Turks. The \Vallachian confederates, however, betrayed him in the hour of trial; and at the battle of Dragaschan his little band, surrounded by the superior numbers of the enemy, was nearly cut to pieces. Retreating to Rimnick, he disbanded his followers, and hastened to join his fellow patri ots in Greece; but arriving at Trieste, he was seiz ed by the Austrian authorities, and cast into prison.