Sinán Páshá Is Made Grand Vezír a Fifth Time
The káímakám of Constantinople, Ibrahím Páshá, of whom frequent though not honourable mention has been made, expected that on the death of Lála Mohammed Páshá, as well as on some former occasions, when a prime minister was degraded, that the emperor would confer the seals upon him. He was mistaken, and of course disappointed. The fact was, that the emperor had discovered before then that he was the principal cause of Ferhád Páshá’s murder, and was seized with a kind of horror and remorse, and therefore dismissed him from office and from his presence.
The friends of Sinán, lately deposed and banished, were not idle. They threw a cloak over his faults, and represented his virtues and high qualifications for government in such a light as to induce his majesty to recall him from his exile, and to reinstate him (a fifth time) in his former office. He took his place in the diván about the end of Rabia II.
A circumstance took place about this time which is worthy of being recorded. A great dispute having taken place between Ibrahím Páshá and his father-in-law, Sinán Páshá, the former accused the latter, in the presence of the diván, of maladministration, and charged him with being the cause of all the insurrections which had happened, by his having given places of trust and responsibility to men who were unfit to hold these offices. On another occasion Ibrahím spoke in the same strain in presence of the emperor, which so enraged Sinán that he said: “I am represented to your majesty as a person every way unfit to hold office, and though it be Ibrahím who has thought fit to do so, I challenge him to go down to the court, and there let us try the edge and strength of our daggers.” Thus saying, he seized him by his robes and thrust him out of the presence of the emperor. These were times in which rebellion and disorder, hatred and envy, reigned without; rudeness and asperity within; and had the effect of marring the tranquillity of all ranks and conditions.