He published an account of his experience in Italy the following year in Italian-language La mia prigionia, episodio storico dell'assedio di Venezia, Istanbul 1850 (My imprisonment, historical episode from the siege of Venice).

[5] In Istanbul, after an initial period of poverty and hardship, he obtained a position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,[5] whence he was seconded to London for a time, to the Imperial Ottoman Embassy to the Court of St. James's.

[5] In 1863, thanks to his knowledge of Serbian, he was appointed to serve as a secretary and interpreter to Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, Ottoman statesman and historian, on a fact-finding mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina which lasted for twenty months, from the spring of 1863 to October 1864.

[9] As a member of the Committee he met during mid-March with British ambassador Austen Henry Layard in Istanbul and urged that Albanian inhabited territories not be given to newly independent Slavic states.

[12][14] Sultan Abdulhamid II appointed Vasa as Mutessarıf of Mount Lebanon on 18 June 1882, a post reserved by international treaty for a Catholic of Ottoman nationality after the civil unrest and French occupation of 1860.

[18] He attempted to impress on readers the unity of Albanians as a people with a common language, customs, history and aspirations while sidelining religious divisions and differences between the areas of Gegalik (Gegënia) and Toskalik (Toskëria).

[18] Various outlets of the European press like The (London) Times reviewed his book and explained its contents, themes and other details about Albania and Albanians to their readership.

[18] O moj Shqypni (Oh Albania) "Albanians, you are killing kinfolk, You're split in a hundred factions, Some believe in God or Allah, Say "I'm Turk," or "I am Latin," Say "I'm Greek," or "I am Slavic," But you're brothers, hapless people!

To make the Albanian language better known and to give other Europeans an opportunity to learn it, he published a Grammaire albanaise à l'usage de ceux qui désirent apprendre cette langue sans l'aide d'un maître, Ludgate Hill 1887 (Albanian grammar[15] for those wishing to learn this language without the aid of a teacher), one of the rare grammars of the period.

[7] In 1884, shortly after his appointment as Governor General of the Lebanon, his second wife from Shkodër, Katerina Bonati, died of tuberculosis, as did his surviving daughter Roza in 1887.

Focusing on the habits and customs of Gheg Albanians in Northern Albania[15] the novel set in Shkodra during 1842, is classically structured roman-feuilleton, rather excessively sentimental for modern tastes and follows the tribulations of the fair but married Bardha and her lover, the young Aradi.

It was interpreted by some Albanian intellectuals at the time as a vehicle for discrediting the Gjonmarkaj clan who, in cahoots with the powerful abbots of Mirdita, held sway in the Shkodra region.

[20] Frustrated by Albanian societal divisions, this stirring appeal by Vasa for a national awakening and unity transcending religious and other identities is thought to have been written in the period between 1878, the dramatic year of the League of Prizren, and 1880.