ation on his safe arrival. This letter, artful and insinuating,
was calculated to make a deep impression on Kursheed. Ali wrote that,
being driven by the infamous lies of a former servant, called Pacho Bey,
into resisting, not indeed the authority of the sultan, before whom he
humbly bent his head weighed down with years and grief, but the
perfidious plots of His Highness's advisers, he considered himself happy
in his misfortunes to have dealings with a vizier noted for his lofty
qualities. He then added that these rare merits had doubtless been very
far from being estimated at their proper value by a Divan in which men
were only classed in accordance with the sums they laid out in gratifying
the rapacity of the ministers. Otherwise, how came it about that
Kursheed Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt--after the departure of the French, the
conqueror of the Mamelukes, was only rewarded for these services by being
recalled without a reason? Having been twice Romili-Valicy, why, when he
should have enjoyed the reward of his labours, was he relegated to the
obscure post of Salonica? And, when appointed Grand Vizier and sent to
pacify Servia, instead of being entrusted with the government of this
kingdom which he had reconquered for the sultan, why was he hastily
despatched to Aleppo to repress a trifling sedition of emirs and
janissaries? Now, scarcely arrived in the Morea, his powerful arm was to
be employed against an aged man.

Ali then plunged into details, related the pillaging, avarice, and
imperious dealing of Pacho Bey, as well as of the pachas subordinate to
him; how they had alienated the public mind, how they had succeeded in
offending the Armatolis, and especially the Suliots, who might be brought
back to their duty with less trouble than these imprudent chiefs had
taken to estrange them. He gave a mass of special information on this
subject, and explained that in advising the Suliots to retire to their
mountains he had really only put them in a false position as long as he
retained possession of the fort of Kiapha, which is the key of the
Selleide.

The Seraskier replied in a friendly manner, ordered the military salute
to be returned in Ali's honour, shot for shot, and forbade that
henceforth a person of the valour and intrepidity of the Lion of Tepelen
should be described by the epithet of "excommunicated." He also spoke of
him by his title of "vizier," which he declared he had never forfeited
the right to use;