text:  The exact regularity which he enforced both in the payment and disbursement of the revenue relieved the people from the irregular imposts to which they had been subject in order to make up the deficiencies arising from the interception by the pashas of the tributes of distant provinces and the peculation which had long reigned unchecked at the seat of government--while the sums thus rendered disposable were laid out chiefly in improving the internal communications and strengthening the defences of the empire