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Updated: June 1, 2025
"Return to your house, and order the soldiers to return to their barracks. My defterdar will bring you an answer." He turned and left the apartment. "Well, for this time we will be patient and wait," said Mohammed, addressing his officers.
True, he assumed a hostile attitude toward me a few days ago, but he must be reconciled. He must be prevented from uniting with Taher. The two united would be a fearful combination against me." He instructs the defterdar to go in person to Mohammed Ali to request him to come to the viceroy. "We cannot pay the troops, but we can find enough to pay the general's salary."
Should I not return by that time, seek me." The defterdar, who hears every word of this, murmurs to himself: "It will be necessary to acquaint his highness with this, that he may be on his guard, and not detain the sarechsme in his fortress too long. The consequences might be dangerous." In humble terms he begs to be permitted to hasten in advance to announce his coming to the viceroy.
The soldiers had not gone to their barracks; Taher had not come to seek repose in his house, but to demand his and his soldiers' pay. "We are in rags, and starving; we need shoes and clothes. Give us our pay, that we may satisfy our hunger and clothe ourselves!" "But how am I to pay them?" said the defterdar, addressing the viceroy in anxious tones.
Let us return to the defterdar; he must and shall pay us!" The revolting soldiers surged on up the street. Mohammed, however, returned to his solitary apartments with a clearer brow and a more derisive smile on his lips: "This was well done, and can tend only to my advantage. Taher Pacha will not be much pleased, either, when his soldiers tell him of the presents made by me to mine.
To have gained a week is to have gained a great deal. Within this time the viceroy will succeed in replenishing his coffers. His defterdar is very skillful in the art of getting money, and who should understand the art if not the minister of finance? He will find means to collect from the ulemas, from the rich sheiks, and from the merchants, money enough to quiet his rebellious troops.
On the following morning the defterdar gave the troops half their pay, the sum raised by the tax imposed on the foreigners not being sufficient to liquidate the whole amount. The soldiers, however, were not satisfied with receiving half their pay, and went away grumbling. This gave only temporary relief, and soon the whole army was dissatisfied, clamoring for pay and ripe for revolt.
Hearing, however, that the Defterdar, an Egyptian Turk, had resided many years in England, and spole English fluently, Mr Paton sought an interview; and after "taking a series of short and rapid whiffs from my pipe," while considering the best way of breaking the ice, opened his battery by telling the Defterdar, "that few Orientals could draw a distinction between politics and geography; but that with a man of his calibre and experience I was safe from misconstruction that I was collecting materials for a work on the Danubian provinces, and that for any information which he might give me, consistently with his official position, I should feel much indebted, as I thought I was least likely to be misunderstood by stating clearly the object of ny journey, while information derived from the fountain-head was most valuable.
The soldiers who had heard all, cried loudly: "Long live our sarechsme! Long live Bardissi, our chief!" "Believe me, soldiers, he will give you your pay! Will you not, Bardissi?" "Yes, sarechsme, your soldiers shall receive their pay. I give you my word, they shall be paid to-morrow. Come to the citadel, to my defterdar to-morrow morning, and he will pay you."
All these details were certified by unimpeachable documents in schedules B. C. and D. Moreover, the blood of many nationalities circulated in the veins of Baron Leonard. The Defterdar himself was a Turk of Roumelian origin, whose only son was the child of his Hindu concubine. He again married the daughter of a Polish countess at the court of Vienna.
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