Poiráz Osmán and Other Rebels Executed
The following day, at an early hour, the mufti, the vezírs, the grandees, the ulemá, and others, met for consultation in the house of the ághá of the palace, and continued their deliberations in reference to the interests of religion and the benefit of the state till the hour of prayer. The grand vezír then mounted his horse and went to pay a visit to his august majesty, accompanied by the new mufti and the military judge of Anatolia, Mustafa Effendí, who, it will be remembered, was recommended by the janissaries to fill the office of the high priest. The grand vezír was preceded by a body of armed foot soldiers to the imperial palace, and after having had the honour of kissing his sovereign’s hand, the emperor entered into conversation with him and the other august persons that accompanied him about the state of public affairs. The serdár, after the above interview, returned in great pomp to the At-maidán, where the janissaries, who had met there by appointment, fired several rounds, and the cavalry went through their evolutions in token of joy for the success which had attended the grand vezír.
The mufti and the military judge, after having conversed some little while with the grand vezír, retired to their own homes.
Now that peace and good order had been established, the inhabitants came forward in multitudes to congratulate the grand vezír on his escape from the snares which had been laid for him, and to express their gratitude for his having quenched the fury of the spáhís. On this same day, in the afternoon, two messengers, one after the other, arrived, and informed the vezír that Poiráz Osmán and Ohgúz Mohammed, two of the principal leaders in the late disturbance, had been seized, and that Mustafa Aghá, the ághá of the spáhís, was conducting these two culprits into his presence. In a short time they appeared bound in chains before him: the vezír addressed them thus: “Osmán Beg, I showed you much respect and attention in the late war on the frontiers; I conferred on you offices of trust and profit, and have heaped favours upon you. Is this, then, the return you make? Is this according to your solemn promises? What can be the reason that you have acted thus? Why have you joined yourself to my enemies?” Poiráz Osmán replied; “O, exalted páshá, why do you force me to speak? I certainly did not commit the evil you impute to me in order that I should afterwards offer an apology. What has happened to me has been my lot. I have not trampled on your goodness so as to banish from my view all thoughts of providence. I feel that I am every way worthy of punishment; at the same time I humbly request you, in the exercise of your consummate benevolence, not to allow me, a guilty man, to be strangled like a woman, but kill me yourself with your sword.” “God forbid,” said the vezír in return, “that we should kill a heroic man of your stamp, especially as we know you must have been disadvantageously placed. But what,” continued the páshá, “induced you to adopt the course you have taken? I wish you to give me an explanation;” and then urged him to do so. Osmán Beg replied, “When I came to Constantinople, I perceived the spáhís going on with their mischievous purposes, but at first declined taking any share in them. Kátib Jezámí and others came running about me; and when I tried to escape them they followed me, urging me to join them. They used to tell me this and that; that the mufti, all the vezírs, the military judge, and other great men were in the plot; that they should without doubt accomplish their purpose; ‘your making yourself singular,’ they said, ‘will not retard the execution of our plan, and your obstinacy will only serve to bring evil upon yourself.’ They took me one day to the mufti’s deputy, who invited me to a splendid feast; I assembled that day with the rebels, but did not, for a while, mix with them; I was afterwards invited by Mahmúd Páshá to wait on him. I did so, and he constrained me to declare my sentiments; to say on what side I was. ‘Osmán,’ said Mahmúd, ‘we have concocted this great measure, and your not taking a decided share in it is not wise; and to oppose the general voice, you know, is not safe, especially as the conspirators have thirty thousand ducats at their disposal. Do not, my friend, make yourself obnoxious;’ and much more to the same purpose. From Mahmúd’s I was conducted to the mufti effendí, Siná-allah himself, and thence to the military judge. Each of the spiritual dignitaries employed many arguments to induce me to join them. I was at last, from what I had seen and heard, persuaded that all the men of name and power had espoused this unfortunate party’s interest, and were united in carrying it forward to a conclusion. The thirty thousand ducats were every now and then referred to. To make the story short, the devil tempted me; I became one of their number, and was one of the most active in the whole of the disturbance and insubordination which have lately manifested themselves.” This seems a very candid confession, but it helped the unfortunate culprit nothing. The grand vezír looked in the poor devil’s face with astonishment, and wondered at his statement. He ordered Aghá Mustafa to conduct the culprits into the royal presence, where the whole of the above facts were again elicited, and the result was, that the emperor ordered their heads to be severed from their bodies, which was immediately complied with. A day or two afterwards the insurgent Dipa kiz Rizván met with a similar fate; so did also Ghuzáz Alí and Burnáz Mohammed; but the infamous and wicked Kátib Jezámí could nowhere be found. Strict search for him it must, however, be confessed, was not made. It appears that he had collected a great quantity of gold together, had himself put into a coffin, and was carried over from Constantinople to Uskudár (Scutari), whence, with a few servants, he fled on horseback. His servants, falling in love with his money, however, took the opportunity, when they reached a mountainous part of the country, to murder him, and took the whole of his gold to themselves. Whilst these wretches were disputing and maliciously contending as to the mode of dividing their spoil, one of their number fled from them; and thus the story of Kátib Jezámí was made known.
Hasan Khalífeh, another of the heads of the insurgents who had been previously involved in other desperate acts, thinking himself perfectly secure, entered into coffee-houses, and spent part of the nights of the month of Ramazán in gay conversation, and in the participation of good cheer along with some of his friends in the above houses; but on the 11th night of that month, whilst enjoying his pleasure in one of these cafés, he was seized and hurried away into the presence of the emperor, when he was without mercy instantly sent to the mansions of the dead. In this way the whole of the ringleaders of the insurgents were disposed of: the world was thus delivered from their mischievous existence.
As to Gúzelcheh Mohammed Páshá, the deputy-governor of Constantinople, he fled and hid himself at the very commencement of the tumult, as before observed; but he was afterwards discovered in the habit of a súfí, near the mosque built by Hájí Khosrú, a rich man, on the outside of Constantinople. He threw himself on the mercy of the sublime Sultán, and thus escaped with his life.
New troubles, however, arose. A foundation for enmity between the spáhís and the janissaries was laid by the proceedings of the grand vezír, as before hinted. Peace and order had scarcely begun to be felt, when a dispute arose between these two powerful military bodies, and was carried on with the utmost asperity. Whenever any of the one party met any of the other, a battle uniformly took place. But it was beyond the walls of Constantinople that this hostility was most fiercely manifested. The proud vezír’s passion for murder and bloodshed continued unabated: his thirst for vengeance against the remaining objects of his hatred he never failed to satiate whenever he found an opportunity of doing so. He thought that the measure he had employed in crushing the rebellion which had been raised against himself had been completely effectual. He was proud of his own doings, and began to publish abroad in the palace of the emperor Alexander (the court of Constantinople) his own mighty deeds; and supposed he was every way such a favourite with the emperor that nothing he could ask would be refused. In this exalted state of his imagination, he passed five successive inglorious fast days in the greatest transports and joy. Having fully acquired the victory and glory which he thought necessary for himself, he began to increase his own abstemiousness and piety in a corresponding measure; but his fury and malignity for promoting the purposes of his own heart were in proportion to the good qualities he had formerly manifested. In short, he exercised violence and cruelty without restraint. He shed blood, and punished to excess; any one who was so unhappy as to displease him, however trifling the offence might have been, was certain of feeling his vengeance, and that was generally death. Without even the shadow of any rational pretext whatever, he caused one Alí Aghá, the brother-in-law of the ághá of the palace, to be strangled. The very day after this deed was committed, he went to the diván, and caused Tarnákjí Hasan Páshá to be singled out from among the senators in the diván, and ordered his head to be struck off even under the sacred roof; but for what crime he suffered death no one knew. The grand vezír, in fact, was absolute and supreme, and therefore irresistible.
Hasan Páshá, formerly mentioned, was about this time appointed to the government of Baghdád, to which he repaired.
Azím Zádeh Effendí relates, what is not at all to be wondered at in those days of mourning, that this same grand vezír had formed the design also of numbering among the slain Sáa’tjí Hasan Páshá, who had been formerly governor of Constantinople, but that he had the good fortune to make his escape to Trebisond. Háfiz Páshá, the eunuch, who formerly had been káímakám of the Sublime Porte, was sent by him to the Seven Towers, and he lay there without the hope of escape. Others besides these now mentioned felt his resentment, and that too for mere trifles: for neglecting to shew him the respect he conceived to be due to him, or if he had any suspicion of their acting contrary to his views of such things.
About this same time also he began to lay his hand upon the merchants, and to extort money from them. By the advice of Yázijí Zádeh, he got the ulemá to extend his powers and privileges, by which means he exercised oppression and tyranny, cruelty and rapine, in every direction.