,
He, when the hunter's sport was up,
But little deem'd a brother's wrath
To quench his thirst had such a cup:
The bowl a bribed attendant bore--
He drank one draught, nor needed more.

During this progression of his fortunes, he had been more than once
called upon to furnish his quota of troops to the imperial armies,
and had served at their head with distinction against the Russians.
He knew his countrymen, however, too well ever to trust himself at
Constantinople. It was reported that he had frequently been offered
some of the highest offices in the empire, but he always declined
them and sought for power only among the fastnesses of his native
region. Stories of the skill and courage with which he counteracted
several machinations to procure his head were current and popular
throughout the country, and among the Greeks in general he was
certainly regarded as inferior only to the Grand Vizier himself. But
though distrusting and distrusted, he always in the field fought for
the Sultan with great bravery, particularly against the famous rebel
Paswan Oglou. On his return from that war in 1798, he was, in
consequence, made a pasha of three tails, or vizier, and was more
than once offered the ultimate dignity of Grand Vizier, but he still
declined all the honours of the metropolis. The object of his
ambition was not temporary power, but to found a kingdom.

He procured, however, pashalics for his two sons, the younger of
whom, Velhi, saved sufficient money in his first government to buy
the pashalic of the Morea, with the dignity of vizier, for which he
paid seventy-five thousand pounds sterling. His eldest son, Mouctar,
was of a more warlike turn, with less ambition than his brother. At
the epoch of which I am speaking, he supplied his father's place at
the head of the Albanians in the armies of the Sultan, in which he
greatly distinguished himself in the campaign of 1809 against the
Russians.

The difficulties which Ali Pasha had to encounter in establishing his
ascendancy, did not arise so much from the opposition he met with
from the neighbouring pashas as from the nature of the people, and of
the country of which he was determined to make himself master. Many
of the plains and valleys which composed his dominions were occupied
by inhabitants who had been always in rebellion, and were never
entirely conquered by the Turks, such as the Chimeriotes, the
Sulliotes, and the nations living among the mountai