CONSTANTINOPLE, August 5.

Send this clipping to somebody

Transcribed from the clipping

CONSTANTINOPLE, August 5. ON the 5th Ultimo the Palace of Mahomet Pacha took Fire, and was reduced to Ashes, as were two Houses contiguous to the Palace. The Report still prevails that Ali Bey is assassinated. They add, that his Troops have abandoned Damascus, and that Osman Pacha beat them in their Retreat.

We have heard of a particular Act of the Bravery of Ali Dahar, Son of Cheik Dahar, who, being irritated by the Resistance of the Turks, attacked their right Wing with such Fury that he forced through the Ranks to the Place where the Pacha of Marasch, who commanded the Turks, was fighting, and killed him with his own Hand. …September 20.

By a Letter from a Greek Merchant at Smyrna, to his Brother in this City, we learn that the famous Ali Bey, who lately revolted from the Grand Seignior, has at length conquered all Syria, and on the 27th of August made a publick Entry into Antioch, where he was received with the loudest Acclamations by the People of that Metropolis.

He was immediately waited upon by the Patriarch, at the Head of his… He seems to have taken a great Liking to the Patriarch, and spends several Hours in his Company, from whence large Immunities are expected for the Christians in Syria and Palestine.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan at 5 to 9 times magnification on 25 October 2026. The long s is set throughout this page and has been transcribed as a modern s. No character the type sets as a long s has been read as an f, and no f has been read as a long s; where the two could not be told apart the word was left unread rather than guessed. The clipping is a crop of body type. It carries no masthead, no folio line, no running head and no page number, so neither the publication name nor the printing date can be confirmed from the page itself. Both come from the hand-typed slide label and are recorded here unchanged. The printed dateline CONSTANTINOPLE, August 5. is set as a centred head in letterspaced capitals with a two-line initial below it, and stands in the headline field because no headline is printed; nothing has been composed to fill it. The clipping runs CONSTANTINOPLE, August 5.; VENICE, September 11.; September 20.; and a Warsaw item of September 18. The two elisions in the excerpt are marked and cover the Venice item of September 11 and the middle of the September 20 letter, neither of which was transcribed; every sentence printed here was read from a magnified crop. Spellings are the paper’s and are kept as set: Pacha, Cheik Dahar, Marasch, publick, Grand Seignior. Note that the same man is spelled three ways across this batch — Cheik Dahar here, Cheik Daer on the scan labelled Virginia Gazette 16 May 1771, and Chiek Daher on the scan labelled 22 February 1773 — and each is kept as its own page prints it. Nothing on this clipping is in quotation marks.

Context added by this archive

The clipping names a man of the country and credits him with a single act: “Ali Dahar, Son of Cheik Dahar”, who rode through the Turkish ranks at Marasch and killed the commanding Pacha with his own hand.

Later on the same clipping, a Greek merchant’s letter from Smyrna reports Ali Bey’s entry into Antioch and ends by expecting “large Immunities” for the Christians in Syria and Palestine. Nobody from the region speaks on the page.

Cite this clipping

"CONSTANTINOPLE, August 5.," Virginia Gazette, 16 January 1772. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1772-001. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1772-001