ABSTRACT
Those n1asterful pretorians at once saw that, so long as Hajji Mustapha lived, they could not do as they please~, and they lost little time in plotting his destruction. Another invasion of Pasvanoglu gave them the desired opportunity; and, in 1801, at a moment when Belgrade was denuded of troops, they n1urdered the pasha in the fortress, and their four chiefs divided his pashalik among themselves. The Sultan, occupied with the war against France, was unable to send an army against them; and, at their request, replaced the dead pasha by a successor, who, as an ex-captain of Janissaries, was their willing tool. The leaders now reassumed the title of dahi, and governed the people, Mohammedan as well as Christian, in the most arbitrary manner. The administration of justice was in their hands; and, in order further to secure their position, they invited kindred spirits from Bosnia and Albania to plunder the province, which they treated as their
private property. No wonder that brigandage, which had almost ceased under Hajji Mustapha, began to reappear; and it was calculated that a tenth of the population took to the mountains. The ~1:ohamlnedan spahi, seeing their privileges as landowners threatened, now joined hands with the Christians against the conlman oppressors. Through their instrumentality a petition was sent to the Sultan setting forth the grievances of the Serbs; and the Sultan replied by threatening the Janissaries, that, if they continued in their evil practices, he would send against them an army, "not of 1'urks, but of lneo of another faith and another race." By a process of exhaustion the Janissaries arrived at the conclusion that these words could only refer to the Serbs; and they at once resolved to anticipate an attack by murdering all the prominent men of that race. Early in 1804 they carried out their plan. But the massacre of the Servian head-men provoked the Servian revolution; and, as the result proved, Alexa Nenadovich and the other victims of the Janissaries died for their country just as much as if they had fallen fighting on the field of battle. The news spread like wildfire; the people flew to arms; and, as usually happens \vhen a leader is wanted, a leader was found in the person of George Petrovich, better known as Kara George.
