 He set up a pavilion and from within it presided over a "fête du Nil" – it was he who gave the signal to throw into the floats the statue of the river's fiancée, his name and Mohammed's were mingled in the same acclamations, on his orders gifts were distributed to the people, and he gave kaftans to his main officers.In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the support of the Egyptian population, Bonaparte issued proclamations that cast him as a liberator of the people from Ottoman and Mamluk oppression, praising the precepts of Islam and claiming "friendship" between France and the Ottoman Empire despite French intervention in the breakaway state.This position as a liberator and Ottoman ally initially gained him solid support in Egypt and later led to admiration for Napoleon from the Albanian Muhammad Ali of Egypt, who succeeded where Bonaparte had not in reforming Egypt and declaring its independence from the Ottomans.