in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles, stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men, with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that it was the Sandjak-shereef, or sacred standard of the Prophet—the oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Shaïtan or the devil, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed upon a conference, and peace was signed October 27, 1676. The humiliating demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec, Podolia, and great part of the Ukraine, were left in possession of the Turks, whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded, as on many occasions, in gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken.
Before the news, however, of the pacification with Poland had reached Constantinople, Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had long suffered from dropsy, the same disease which had proved fatal to his father, and the effects of which were in his case, aggravated by too free an indulgence in wine, to which, after his return from Candia, he is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan, who had for many years remained absent from his capital, on a visit, during the summer months, to Constantinople, but, on the return to Adrianople, he was compelled, by increasing sickness, to halt on the banks of the Erkench, between Chorlu and Demotika, where he breathed his last in a chitlik, or farm-house, called Kara-Bovir, October 30, at the age of forty-seven, after having administered the affairs of the empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried back to Constantinople, and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected by his father, amid the lamentations of the people, rarely poured forth over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his History of the Ottoman Empire) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the Magnificent and his two successors, Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his contemporary Rycaut:—"He was, in person, (for I have seen him often, and knew him well,) of a middle stature, of a black beard, and brown complexion;3 something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages, and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice—a rare virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel, with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia, having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years, though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people, yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a greater height and eminency of glory."
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