Concerning the Defeat of Kásim Páshá
We noticed sometime ago, that Kásim Páshá, on the 22d of Rabia II., had been appointed to the government of Baghdád. We referred particularly also to his conduct towards Alí Páshá, and to the tyranny and oppression he had exercised at Scutari. In the neighbourhood of Brúsa, whither he had gone after leaving, or rather after he was obliged to leave Scutari, he committed the same kind of shameless excesses he had been guilty of in other places. Complaints against his cruelty and tyranny having been laid before the emperor, a bostánjí báshí was forthwith dispatched with orders to cut him off, but who was so overawed by the páshá that he had not the resolution to fulfil his mission. The grand vezír, because he did not obey the order of government, removed the bostánjí báshí from his office, and appointed Dervísh Aghá, ketkhodá of the bostánjís, in his stead. This is the same Dervísh Aghá who afterwards obtained a near access to the emperor’s ear, and was made páshá for the important services he had rendered to the state. But to proceed. Kásim Páshá not only escaped the snare which had been laid for him, and the death he ought to have suffered, but was actually appointed to the government of Kutahia. Here he also manifested a spirit of carelessness and indifference, which eventually entailed upon him the punishment which had formerly been meditated against him. In order, however, to make sure of this, it was considered wise to send him a royal letter appointing him to the deputyship of Constantinople, in room of Háfiz Páshá, and an invitation to him to return and take possession of that office. Confiding in the royal letter Kásim returned to Constantinople, and was hardly one day in office, when he received three royal communications on important affairs, which, at once, had the effect of clearing away all doubt from his mind as to his being firmly fixed in the deputyship. This being the case, as he believed, he that very day appointed his predecessor Háfiz Páshá, third vezír. Ibrahím Aghá he made master of the horse, and Mím Ibrahím his remembrancer. About supper-time Chobán Soleimán, chief of the royal messengers, waited upon the new deputy, and informed him that on the following morning a council was to be held in the royal presence; and also that the emperor’s chaplain, the mufti, the vezírs, and other magnates of the state, had all been invited to attend. Accordingly, at daybreak next morning Kásim Páshá proceeded to the diván with great pomp and ceremony. On entering into the royal presence, and before all who were present, he advanced towards the emperor and did obeisance. The emperor, without any sort of preamble, began immediately to question him with respect to his conduct in neglecting to obey his royal mandates on more occasions than one. Kásim was confounded, and could find nothing to say in reply: to vindicate himself was impossible. The emperor then turned to the high-priest and consulted with him as to the nature of the guilt and crime with which Kásim stood chargeable, and from which he could in no way clear himself, when the reverend prelate gave it forth as his verdict, that Kásim should be put to death. This sentence had scarcely been pronounced, when, on a signal having been given, in rushed a number of bostánjís, who instantly severed Kásim Páshá’s head from his body. His carcass, by imperial orders, was carried in a dray and thrown into a ditch before the gates of Adrianople. Thus ended the eventful life of this ambitious and turbulent páshá.