Young, John: A series of portraits of the emperors of Turkey from the foundation of the monarchy to the year 1808: engraved from pictures painted at Constantinople by command of Sultan Selim the Third with a biographical account of each of the emperors (London, 1815)

MUSTAPHA IV.

TWENTY-NINTH EMPEROR OF THE TURKS.

1807-1808.

This Emperor succeeded to the throne on the deposition of Selim the Third. An attempt on the
part of Mustapha Bairacter, a bold and enterprising leader, to restore the deposed Sultan, was the
only public transaction worthy of recording in this reign; but before his release could be effected,
Selim perished by the consent of Mustapha the Fourth, whose subsequent deposition placed the
illustrious Mahmoud on the throne of the Ottomans.

Sultan Mustapha, although accessary to the death of Selim, and not entirely free from the sus-
picion of having meditated the destruction of his brother the present Sultan, was treated with
lenity and forbearance ; but when he offered to the new Emperor, the accustomed salutation on
his accession, Mahmoud, with a virtuous indignation and magnanimous forbearance, spared his
life, banishing for ever from his presence, the murderer of his enlightened but unfortunate
kinsman.

Mustapha, equally remarkable for weakness of mind and body, and with an utter incapacity for
the government of a great Empire, perished in an insurrection which disturbed the early part of
the reign of his successor.