EGYPT, AND SYRIA. ii 
ment ; and their fitiiation, together with other circumftances, 
has favoured them in their oppofition to public orders. The 
prefent Beys, efpecially, they afFed: to confider as rebels againft 
the authority of the Porte. Thus mutually jealous, each party 
is conftantly on the watch to profit by any overfight of the 
other : the Beys, in order to put the Alexandrians in the 
fame unqualified fubje£tion, with refped: to them, as the reft 
of the Egyptians are ; and the Alexandrians to perpetuate that 
qualified dependence, or imperfect autocracy, in which, by 
fubterfuge and fertility of expedient, they have hitherto main- 
tained themfelves. 
Affairs were in. this fl:ate when an order came from Murad 
Bey, who had the jurifdidion of this diftrid, to fhut up the 
public warehoufes, or o^a/s, where commerce is chiefly carried 
on. A Cafhef was fent to fee it executed, but unaccompanied 
by any military force : he had alfo orders to arreft, and bring 
with him to Kahira, the perfon of Shech Mohammed ei Mif- 
firi, one of the chief Mullas who had always been adive in 
promoting oppofition to the meafures of the Beys ; and who is 
remarkable, as I am informed, for eloquence both perfuafivc 
and deliberative. The greater part of the inhabitants affembled 
in the principal mofque, and came to the refolution of obliging 
the Caflief to quit the city. They alfo determined on fending 
away the fuperintendant of the cuftoms, who by frauds of every 
kind had rendered himfelf hateful to them, and againft whom 
unavailing complaints had already repeatedly been made to the 
Bey. Some of the body were deputed to inform both parties, 
that they muft leave the city before night, under pain of death. 
c 2 But 
