According to the most authentic accounts, Mehemet Ali was born in 1768 (a. h. 1182), at Cavala, a seaport in Turkey in Europe.  He was yet very young when he lost his father, Ibrahim Agha, and soon after this misfortune, his uncle and sole remaining relative, Tussun-Agha, was beheaded by order of the Porte.  Left an orphan, Mehemet Ali was adopted by the Tchorbadji of Praousta, an old friend of his father, who brought him up with his own son.  The boy spent his early youth in the discharge of unimportant military duties, where, however, he frequently found opportunity to display his intelligence and courage.  He was even able to render many services to his protector in the collecting of taxes, which was always a difficult matter in Turkey, and occasionally necessitated a regular military expedition.

Anxious to reward Mehemet for all his services, and also doubtless desirous of a still closer connection, the aged Tchorbadji married him to his daughter.  This was the beginning of the young man’s success; he was then eighteen years old.  Dealings with a French merchant of Cavala had inspired him with a taste for commerce, and, devoting himself to it, he speculated with much success, chiefly in tobacco, the richest product of his country.

This period of his life was not without its influence upon Egypt, for we know how strenuously the pasha endeavoured to develop the commercial and manufacturing industries.

The French invasion surprised him in the midst of these peaceful occupations.  The Porte, having raised an army in Macedonia, ordered the Tchorbadji to furnish a contingent of three hundred men, who entrusted the command of this small force to his son Ali Agha, appointing Mehemet Ali, whose merit and courage he fully appreciated, as his lieutenant.  The Macedonain recruits rejoined the forces of the pasha-captain, and landed with the grand vizier at Abukir, where was fought that battle which resulted in victory for France and the complete defeat of the sultan’s army.  Completely demoralised by this overthrow, Ali Agha left Mehemet Ali in command of his troops, and quitted the army.

It is well to consider in a brief survey the state of the country at the moment when the incapacity of General Menou compelled the French to withdraw from Egypt.  Arrayed against each other were the troops of the sultan, numbering four thousand Albanians and those forces sent from England under the command of Admiral Keith, on one side; and on the other were the Mamluks striving for supremacy; and it was a question whether this powerful force would once more rule Egypt as before the French invasion, or whether the country would again fall under the dominion of the Porte.

There was occasion for anxiety among the Mamluks themselves; their two principal beys, Osman-Bardisi and Muhammed el-Elfi, instead of strengthening their forces by acting in concert, as Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey had done before the French occupation, permitted their rivalry for power so completely to absorb them that it was finally the means of encompassing their ruin and that of their party.