In 1790—when Yussef was twenty, Hamet twenty-five, and Hassan twenty-eight—Yussef, who had already feuded with both his brothers, pulled off a deception worthy of the dynasty founder. In one act, he shamed his religion, his mother, and the sacred laws of the harem. Yussef contacted his mother in late July and told her that he wanted to reconcile with his oldest brother. Could she arrange a meeting in her apartments in the castle? The brother promised to show respect for the sanctity of the harem and arrive unarmed. She led them both to a sofa and sat between them, holding each of their hands, and she later told the sister of the English consul “that she prided herself on having at last brought them together to make peace at her side.”
To seal their reconciliation, Yussef said they should swear an oath on the Koran. The eldest replied, “With all my heart.” Yussef stood up and called loudly for a Koran. That was the signal. A eunuch entered and handed him two loaded pistols. His mother tried to deflect the first shot, and several of her fingers were shattered. The ball entered the eldest’s side, but he grabbed a scimitar by the window, shouting at his mother, “Ah! Is this the last present you have reserved for your eldest son?”
Yussef’s next shot hit Hassan in the chest, and he fell bleeding. At the sound of shots, Hassan’s wife, who was eight and a half months pregnant, rushed in and sprawled herself on his body to protect it. Yussef’s black slaves dragged her off by her hair and finished the assassination, firing nine more pistol balls into Hassan and then hacking and emasculating the body.
Such a wanton crime set Tripoli in an uproar. Would the elderly Bashaw punish Yussef, who had surrounded himself with a small army? Would middle brother Hamet attack Yussef? No one had the nerve to confront Yussef. The Bashaw promptly pardoned Yussef and cravenly demanded that Hamet go unarmed to ask his younger brother’s permission to be appointed as the new rightful heir to the throne. But before leaving the castle, amid all this turmoil, Hamet fainted onto his sofa, and word of his weakness spread.
The sister of the English consul, Miss Tully, left an extraordinarily intimate memoir of her ten years in Tripoli. She describes meeting Hamet a few months after his brother’s murder. The portrait is of a gracious gentleman. “His behaviour was mild, polite, and courteous . . . his manners to his family were not less affectionate and delicate than those of the most polished European.” Miss Tully was at once amazed by one trait, quite unusual in a Moslem man of that era. “He converses with his wife and sister in a manner which shewed he considered them as rational beings.”
Yussef, the most feared man in the nation, remained in the countryside, training an army, building allegiances among the tribes, while Hamet lived a sheltered life in the palace. His father grew so disgusted with Hamet that he cut off his allowance, and when the Jewish moneylenders refused him credit, he went politely begging loans from the foreign consuls.
Yussef readied his forces to attack to claim the throne. By his twenty-third birthday, all was in readiness; then, out of nowhere, a fleet of Turkish ships appeared in the harbor, and one Ali Bourghol, a mercenary, claimed the Sultan had appointed him the new Bashaw of Tripoli. Within days, the aged Bashaw and his son Hamet slunk away to Tunis. Yussef remained, plotting resistance.
Ali Bourghol set about looting and pillaging the country. Soon, not a female or a Jew dared to walk the streets. The mighty fell. The favorite consort of the old Bashaw was an “immensely fat Jewess,” dubbed “Queen Esther,” who would tell the Bashaw stories every night at bedtime. She was described as mischievous, happy, and very rich from wielding influence at the castle. Ali Bourghol locked her up in a cell, demanding a ransom of $15,000. The woman’s son arrived at the British consulate, distraught. He said the tight manacles on his mother’s blubbery wrists and ankles chaining her to the dungeon wall would kill her, and he remembered once seeing oversize manacles and a long chain in the consulate’s prison. Could he borrow them?
Esther was apparently huge; Miss Tully reported it took several strong men to lift her onto a donkey, and slaves always walked alongside to make sure that she didn’t fall. A wry Italian traveler visiting Tripoli around this time commented: “If a camel is necessary to carry her, she is considered a superior beauty . . . any woman who cannot move without leaning on two slaves can have only modest pretensions.”
Consul Tully lent the chain, and Esther’s life was saved. Many of the wealthiest Jews, however, did not survive. Two brokers for the Dutch consulate were burnt to death by “slow fire.”