Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Ali Pasha
ALI PASHA, a Turkish diplomatist, commenced his political career by being one of the referendaries of the Imperial Divan. In 1858, when Fuad Pasha went to Paris as Plenipotentiary representing the Porte at the Conference which had assembled to draw up the conventions respecting the United Principalities, he attached Ali Bey to his mission, and the latter rendered himself conspicuous by his general intelligence and aptitude for diplomacy. In 1861 he was appointed First Secretary to the Ottoman Embassy at Paris, and when in 1862 he went on leave of absence to Constantinople, the Government entrusted him with the delicate mission of Commissioner to Servia after the bombardment of Belgrade. Owing to his address and tact he succeeded in settling nearly all the difficulties. Whilst performing these functions, he was in 1865 placed in charge of the political direction of the province of Bosnia. In 1868 he was appointed member of the Council of State, and afterwards undertook several other missions. In 1869 he was nominated to the important post of Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Public Works. He remained in that office until 1870, when he was made governor of Erzeroum, and afterwards of Trebizond, on which occasion he was raised to the dignity of Pasha. In 1872 he became Prefect of Constantinople, where he introduced several important reforms, and in September, 1873, he was sent as ambassador from the Ottoman Porte to the French Republic. He was recalled in Jan. 1876, and appointed Governor-General of the Herzegovina. A few days before his deposition by the Softas (30 May, 1876), the late Sultan Abdul-Aziz appointed Ali Pasha Governor-General of Scutari, in Northern Albania.