THE MEN ABOUT THE AMBASSADOR
Not the least of the many features that differentiated the
Constantinople Embassy from all other embassies was the institution
of the Dragomans[54]--persons through whom all transactions
with the Porte were carried on and upon whom therefore the
Ambassador had to depend for the most essential part of his work.
The Dragomans, in their dual capacity of Intelligencers and
Interpreters, had always been important members of the Embassy
staff. But their importance had increased immeasurably since the
Elizabethan tradition of appointing ambassadors who had served
their apprenticeship as secretaries to their predecessors had
yielded to the practice of sending out diplomats new to Turkey,
her language, and her ways. Cut off from direct contact with
the country, the Ambassador now relied almost entirely upon his
Dragomans’ reports. The Dragomans were his eyes and his ears, as
well as his mouth: they were, in fact, absolute masters of business
and of their employer.
The system laboured under the usual disadvantages of dealing by
proxy, and a good many more peculiar to Turkey. As Intelligencers
the Dragomans were not all that might have been desired: their
information was often inaccurate, and sometimes, when information
failed, they, in order to keep up their reputation for omniscience,
had recourse to invention. Our Ambassadors had already learnt
from experience to receive their news with extreme caution.[55]
Hardly more satisfactory were the Dragomans in their character of
Interpreters. Absurd as it may sound, the persons who performed
this most delicate and confidential function were not subjects
of the sovereign they served, but of the Grand Signor: natives
of Pera, mostly of Italian extraction. This rendered them very
indifferent vehicles of the ambassadorial mind. When the message
with which they were charged happened to be disagreeable to the
Porte, they manifested the strongest disinclination to deliver
it. Fear tied their tongues: they would much rather risk their
employer’s displeasure than the brutal fury of an angry pasha.
There was nothing to wonder at in this: Dragomans had often been
drubbed, sometimes even hanged or impaled, for doing their duty. So
real was the danger and so powerless was the Ambassador to protect
his own servants against the savagery of their liege lords that
even in his presence the Dragomans dared not translate faithfully
his words, if they were of a nature to irritate his Turkish
collocutor. At the mere sound of such words, they were seized with
panic: their faces grew red and white by turns, their foreheads
were covered with beads of sweat, their limbs trembled, their
mouths went suddenly dry--as if they already felt the stick on the
soles of their feet or the halter round their necks. It was no
unusual thing to see the Dragoman of a European Ambassador, after
stammering out an expurgated version of the message, drop on his
knees before the Turkish Minister and burst into abject apologies
for his temerity. At times, ingenious interpreters gifted with
presence of mind were known to improvise imaginary dialogues--to
substitute speeches of their own inspiration for those really made
by the parties on whose behalf they acted. The position was both
tragic and ludicrous; but no ambassador not utterly devoid of
reason and humanity could complain. He himself, if he were in the
Dragoman’s shoes, would behave as the Dragoman behaved. Even as it
was, despite his non-subjection to the Grand Signor, despite also
the theoretical inviolability of his person, a prudent ambassador
shrank from irritating a Turkish pasha: envoys of various Powers
who had forgotten to hold their tongues had been affronted,
assaulted, dragged down the stairs by the hair of their heads,
imprisoned in noisome dungeons. All things considered, the wonder
is not so much that the Dragomans fulfilled their perilous task
inadequately, as that they dared undertake it at all.
Other inconveniences connected with the system enhanced its
inherent viciousness. The Dragomans of the English Embassy were
Roman Catholics, and as all Roman Catholics in Turkey were
protected by the representatives of the Catholic Powers, they
were so much biassed in favour of their patrons that, when the
interests of England clashed with those of a Catholic Power, the
English Ambassador could scarcely trust them. Again, the Dragomans
were often men with large families, and they were very poorly
paid. The temptation therefore to betray their trust for money
was hard to resist. Further, motives of religious sympathy and
cupidity apart, there was the lure of vanity which frequently
impelled a Dragoman to babble out the secrets of his employer in
order to show his own importance. As if to multiply the dangers
of indiscretion, Dragomans serving different ambassadors were
often nearly related to one another, or a Dragoman who served one
embassy at one time might later on transfer his services to its
rival. It was even possible for a Dragoman of an embassy to become
a Dragoman of the Porte, or, while employed by the embassy, to have
a kinsman similarly employed at the Porte. How secrecy and fidelity
under such conditions could ever be looked for it is not easy to
understand.
The vices of the system were flagrant; but the difficulty of
finding a remedy was no less great. An interpreter to do his duty
satisfactorily had to be both competent and courageous. But no
interpreter, under the Turkish rule, could possess both these
qualifications in the same degree. If he was a foreigner, he could
not have the necessary knowledge of the Turkish language, customs,
and character. If he was a native, he could not have the necessary
courage. The French, whose Dragomans had suffered most grievously
from Turkish ferocity, were the only European nation to attempt a
solution of the problem. Their great Minister Colbert had, a few
years since, initiated a reform by sending twelve young Frenchmen
to Smyrna, there to be taught in the Convent of the Capuchins
Turkish, Arabic, and Modern Greek, and then be distributed among
the French Consulates, the ablest of them being destined for the
service of the Embassy. This departure secured to the Diplomatic
and Consular services of France in the Levant a supply of
interpreters who, though they might not possess a native’s intimacy
with Turkish ways, could be trusted to carry out their instructions
honestly and boldly. The advantage gained by this change was so
patent, that the best-informed Englishmen hastened to recommend its
adoption;[56] and, in fact, it was adopted by England--two hundred
years later.
Meanwhile, Sir John Finch had to work through his Perote,
Italian-speaking “Druggermen.” The chief of them, Signor Giorgio
Draperys, “knight of Jerusalem, and of the most noble and ancient
family in this country,”[57] was a man well stricken in years.
He had served the English Embassy for half a century, and had
witnessed all its vicissitudes under six different occupants. His
long and varied experience made Signor Giorgio invaluable to a
novice: no man had a more thorough acquaintance with the rules of
Turkish procedure or with the usages and precedents that governed
the mutual intercourse of foreign envoys than this Patriarch of
Pera. His honesty was not above the normal. For instance, a Prince
of Moldavia, who owed his elevation to Lord Winchilsea, presented
the Dragoman with 6000 sheep for himself, and with 12,000 sheep--as
well as 4000 crowns in cash, a ring worth 1000 crowns, and a horse
worth 300 crowns--for the Ambassador. There is reason to believe
that none of these tokens of Moldavian gratitude ever reached His
Excellency.[58] Of the second Dragoman, Signor Antonio Perone, who
eventually succeeded Signor Giorgio, we shall hear enough in the
course of this story.
In addition, Sir John had an English Secretary, a Mr. William
Carpenter, of whom little more than the name is known to us; and,
besides, he was assisted by the Levant Company’s Cancellier, an
officer whose business it was to draw up all legal documents and to
register them in the Embassy Cancellaria. This office was at the
time filled by Mr. Thomas Coke, a man small in stature, but, it
would seem, of great ability and amiability.[59]
Three other Englishmen with whom business brought Sir John
into frequent contact were personages sufficiently notable in
themselves, and they play sufficiently prominent parts in our story
to deserve special notice.
[Illustration: Paul Rycaut Esq. late Consul of Smyrna; Fellow of
the Royall Societie.
From the Engraving by R. White after the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely.
_To face p. 53._]
At Smyrna he had met our distinguished Consul, Mr. (afterwards
Sir) Paul Rycaut, a graduate of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and an author of European reputation. As his name implies,
Rycaut was of foreign extraction--the son of a wealthy banker of
Brabant who, having settled in England under James I. and ruined
himself for Charles I., died leaving a large family all but
destitute. It fell to the lot of Paul to provide by his labours for
most of these victims of Loyalty. After six arduous years at the
Constantinople Embassy, as Secretary to Lord Winchilsea--who found
him “so modest, discreet, able, temperate and faithfull” that he
transferred him from the steward’s table to his own and treated
him “more like a friend than a servant”[60]--he obtained from the
Levant Company the Consulate of Smyrna. Important and lucrative as
this post was, it was hardly one of those that give tranquillity
to an ambitious heart or enjoyment to a cultivated mind. While
performing its duties with exemplary energy and conscientiousness,
Rycaut looked upon it as a stepping-stone to higher things. In
1666, during a long visit home on public business, he had brought
himself to the notice of the Court by his work on _The Present
State of the Ottoman Empire_--a book which, running into many
editions and translated into French, Italian, German, and Polish,
made the author famous,[61] without, however, making him what he
wished to be. Lord Arlington testified to Rycaut’s “good parts”
and other good qualities,[62] but did nothing for him. We may
congratulate ourselves that his promotion was postponed so long; to
that circumstance we are indebted for much valuable information.
But Rycaut had small cause to feel pleased. The Smyrna Consulate
cramped him like a prison cell. His discontent is written
as plain as large print can make it in the Epistle Dedicatory
prefixed to the _History of the Turkish Empire_ which he published
a few years later: “Ever since the time of Your Majesties happy
Restauration,” he grumbles, “my Lot hath fallen to live and act
within the Dominions of the Turk.” The same feeling is not less
plain in the portrait (a fine engraving after Sir Peter Lely) which
adorns the volume. It shows us a refined face that combines the
irritability of a scholar with the keenness of a place-hunter; an
emaciated face with eyes large, expressive and aggressive, thin
lips tightly pressed, and a chin of remarkable pugnacity--the face
of a man determined to get on and very angry at Fortune’s slow
pace. It is said to resemble Molière’s. The resemblance certainly
does not extend to a sense of humour. Perhaps it was this want
(for assuredly it was not want of push) that condemned a person
of Rycaut’s abilities and attainments to rust in the Consulate of
Smyrna, when his intellectual inferiors became Secretaries of State
in London. Charles II. had little use for men who could not laugh.
Many were the prickly problems that Sir John Finch and Mr. Paul
Rycaut had to handle together during the next few years; and on
all occasions the Ambassador found a most loyal and respectful
lieutenant in this highly accomplished and polished Cavalier.
Of quite a different mould was the Rev. John Covel, Chaplain to the
Embassy and afterwards Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. Like Finch
and Baines, Covel hailed from Christ’s College. Like them, too, he
had studied Medicine in early life, but eventually discovering an
easier vocation, he threw physic to the dogs, took holy orders, and
got a Fellowship at his College. To him also, as to the others, the
Restoration had come as a providential blessing: witness the Latin
prose and English verse wherein he vented his feelings. The merits
of his Latin performance were such as might have been expected from
an erudite young don. Those of his English effusion may be judged
by the following sample:
The horrible winter’s gone,
And we enjoy a cheerful spring;
The kind approach of the Sun
Gives a new birth to every thing.
Among other things, it gave a new birth to the songster’s prospects.
In 1670 an adventure beckoned the Rev. John from afar, and his
heart leapt to greet it. The Constantinople chaplaincy had fallen
vacant by the retirement of the learned Dr. Thomas Smith (known to
history as “Rabbi” Smith). There was the romance of the East with
its new skies and seas and lands; there were curious old creeds to
be investigated, a strange world of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews,
Franks, with their various ways of life: by all means let us go! He
obtained the appointment from the Levant Company, and from the King
a dispensation which enabled him to retain his Fellowship at the
same time. Thus, while drawing at Constantinople a handsome salary
and considerable perquisites for the little he did, our lucky
divine also received from Cambridge, for doing nothing at all,
“all and singular the profits, dividends, stipends, emoluments,
and dues belonging to his Fellowship in as full and ample manner
to all intents and purposes as if he were actually resident in the
College.”[63]
It may be doubted whether a happier Englishman ever trod the
soil of the Grand Signor than the Rev. John. He revelled in the
rich colours and savours of the Levant. The ceremonies of the
Turkish Court and the rites of the Greek Church were a perennial
fountain of interest to him, while the noisy wrangles of theology
touched a vibrant chord in his sympathetic breast. Did Eastern
Christians believe that the bread and wine in the Eucharist
turned into flesh and blood, or did they believe that it remained
bread and wine? This riddle raged just then at Constantinople;
and the reverberations of the controversy, expanding in wider
and yet wider circles, reached Rome, Paris, London, stirring up
everywhere suitably attuned minds to intense, passionate, and
to us almost incomprehensible virulence. The Rev. John plunged
into the transubstantial vortex with all the polemical zest of a
theologian and with a vague notion of writing a big book about
it one day. He discussed the holy and unwholesome question with
everybody--Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant--he could lay hands
on, always ending at the point whence he started--the creed of
Christ’s College, Cambridge. Not less eagerly did our Chaplain
plunge into the ecclesiastical politics than into the metaphysical
polemics of the place. The age-long feud between Greek and Latin
was then blended with the squabbles of rival Greek pretenders to
the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople: Patriarchs arose and
Patriarchs fell as Grand Vizirs did formerly; anathematising their
predecessors cordially and being as cordially anathematised by
their successors, to the Rev. John’s indescribable delight.[64]
That was life, pardieu--the absorbing interplay of warm human
hearts and even warmer human heads.
Though Covel devoted some attention to archaeology, it was with
a lack of interest which he is at no pains to conceal. He could
hardly express his scorn for the “whiflers” who came out of
England and France and careered over the Ottoman Empire buying or
stealing classical antiques. The lore he really loved was folklore:
Greek legends, Turkish songs, living superstitions. If we except
manuscripts dealing with early Heresies, for which he had a passion
(even the sanest of us are mad), the Rev. John only collected
curios that appealed to his sense of the beautiful--if he came
across them cheap. For the same reason he had an appreciative eye
for costumes, jewels, carpets, and other articles of personal or
domestic adornment: they all served to make life pleasant. On all
these topics our Chaplain would talk and scribble with unflagging
volubility--“at full gallop,” to use his own racy simile--repeating
himself, digressing, returning to the subject, straying from it
again, losing himself in a labyrinth of minute irrelevancies. Fond
of shooting and riding, a friend of gay young men and no enemy
to gay young women, especially pretty ones, the Rev. John was
immensely popular with our factors, who found in him a “papas”[65]
after their own hearts.
To the Ambassador also the Rev. John was very acceptable. Going
everywhere, seeing everybody, and hearing everything, the
divine had much to say that was useful for a diplomat to know,
particularly about Greek Patriarchs, Latin friars and their
quarrels; a subject, as we shall see hereafter, by no means foreign
to an English ambassador’s business in those days. Precluded by
his dignity from crossing the water in person, Sir John could
employ the Rev. John as a channel of communication between Pera
and the Phanar. And the Rev. John, as one gathers from his own
voluminous writings, was versatile enough to act as the friend of
all contending parties in turn, according to the exigencies of the
political vane, far too worldly-wise to let consistency interfere
with preferment. For Covel, though content with the present, never
forgot the future; he was not less anxious to get on than Rycaut,
only built on softer, more supple and sinuous lines, he glided
where the other stumbled.[66] Altogether an astonishingly brisk,
jovial, garrulous parson of six-and-thirty this, full of harmless
little vanities, human levities, and healthy little profanities.
But the most striking personality among the English residents, and
the one Sir John Finch had most to do with, was the Treasurer of
the Levant Company at Constantinople, the Honourable (afterwards
Sir) Dudley North, younger son of Lord North,--a handsome man
of thirty-three, already eminent and destined to be famous. In
literary attainments North fell far short of Rycaut and Covel, but
in natural intelligence, in initiative, in resource, in tenacity,
in self-command, in knowledge of the world, and in the other
qualities which conduce to success in life, he was surpassed by no
man of his time. His career is one of the most deeply interesting
documents that have come down to us from the seventeenth century;
even episodes apparently trifling in themselves become full of
meaning when viewed in connection with the general character of the
times.
Like all younger sons Dudley had to carve his own way to
independence. One of his brothers went to the Bar,--ending as Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal in succession to Sir John Finch’s own
brother,--another went into the Church. Dudley might have followed
in the footsteps of either. But the Bar required much reading, the
Church imposed many restraints. Dudley, not studious enough for the
one profession and too lively for the other, revealed at an early
age the calling for which Nature designed him. At school, while
proving himself a hopeless dunce at book-work, he drove a most
profitable trade among the other boys, buying cheap and selling
dear. Manifestly commerce was his metier.
In seventeenth-century England no social cleavage existed between
the world of commerce and the world of the Court. Since Feudalism
had expired in the Wars of the Roses, differences of birth had
ceased to divide the landed from the moneyed classes. All the
county families had their kinsmen in the towns, and the ambition of
many a nobleman’s younger son was to become an alderman, to attain
which eminence he had to serve his apprenticeship behind the
counter and to work with his hands like a menial. The snobbishness
which again divides the two worlds in our day did not set in until
the latter part of the eighteenth century. It is necessary to
emphasise this fact in order to correct an erroneous impression
promulgated by brilliant and superficial historians.[67]
So young Dudley was forthwith placed in a London “writing school”
to acquire the arts of book-keeping and penmanship. At that school
he gave further evidence of his financial genius by extricating
himself from the clutches of his creditors through the simple
device of presenting his noble parents with faked bills of
expenses--not crudely, as an amateur might, but as a born artist
would. The next step in our promising youth’s fortunes was his
being bound apprentice to a Turkey Merchant. By this time Dudley,
with remarkable precocity, had sown his wild oats and had made
up his mind on the one thing needful. As his master’s limited
business left him ample leisure, he employed it in helping his
landlord, a packer, at the packing-press, whereby he not only eked
out his slender allowance, but also acquired experience which was
to be of great value to him--the skilful packing of cloth sent
to Turkey being one of the first mysteries of the trade a novice
had to master. His initiation over, North at the age of eighteen
was sent out to Smyrna as a factor. For capital to trade with on
his own account he had only four hundred pounds advanced him by
his family, and he depended therefore chiefly on the commissions
from his master, supplemented by an occasional order from some
other Turkey Merchants he had ingratiated himself with in London
by officiously doing odd jobs for them. These resources were very
meagre, and the standard of living in the Smyrna Factory, as at the
other Levant factories, was very high. Nowhere did conviviality
reach greater heights.[68] With extraordinary strength of mind
young North refused to bow to fashion. He lodged humbly, dressed
plainly, fed simply, kept no horses, dogs, or hawks, made in every
way a virtue of penury; his settled principle being to save abroad
that he might one day be able to spend at home. From that principle
neither the gibes of his fellows nor the impulses of his own young
blood ever swayed him. Once the others pressed him very earnestly
to go a-hunting with them. The wise youth, not to give offence,
complied--but with characteristic originality, instead of buying a
horse he hired an ass.
In this thrifty way, mindful of his high aim and philosophically
indifferent to public opinion, North passed several years at
Smyrna, working hard, thinking hard, conciliating by his wit the
young whom his eccentricity would otherwise have alienated, earning
by his capacity the respect of the old, and making his company
sought after by “the top merchants of the Factory.” His letters are
full of acute observations and mature reflections on all matters
that fell within his vision. His curiosity was as voracious as
Covel’s, but it did not feed on the external aspect of things.
North took nothing for granted. He burnt with a desire to know the
cause and reason of everything--from an earthquake to a fever, from
the navigation of a ship or the construction of a building to the
government of an empire. He was perpetually on the path of inquiry
and discovery, never allowing his faculties to rest or rust. While
engaged in the practice of commerce, he brought his vigorous
analytical mind to bear on its underlying laws, striking out, in
opposition to the generally accepted views of his day, a theory
of trade which anticipated David Hume’s and Adam Smith’s economic
philosophy by nearly a hundred years.
The chance for which North waited and prepared came at last. There
was a celebrated house of English commission agents and merchants
at Constantinople--the house of Messrs. Hedges and Palmer. Their
business was very large, but through mismanagement it had fallen
into the utmost confusion. North was invited to become a partner
and set things straight. He jumped at the invitation. Through
his doggedness, resourcefulness, and adroitness, old debts were
recovered, compounded for, or written off, the book-keeping
department was reorganised; and order was evolved out of chaos. As
soon as Mr. Hedges saw the business fairly under way he retired to
England at the beginning of 1670, leaving him and Palmer to carry
on by themselves. Then the trouble began. Palmer was everything
that North was not. He lived in a great house and at great expense.
His table was loaded with plenty, and guests were never absent from
it. They came at noon and spent the rest of the day helping their
host to empty his bottles. By the time North had finished his work
Palmer had finished his dinner. North returned home very tired
and found his partner very drunk. After many unpleasant scenes,
he took a strong line. He wrote to all the correspondents of the
firm in Europe, explaining the reasons which led him to break with
his partner and soliciting the continuance of their patronage to
himself. His reputation stood so high, and apparently Palmer’s so
low, that the principals did not hesitate.
This may be described as our Factor’s first stride. He was now
captain of his own ship. Only, as English merchants did not care
to trust single agents abroad, because on their deaths, or even in
their lives, there was always danger of embezzlement, he thought
fit to take into partnership his younger brother Montagu, who,
like himself, had been bred a Turkey Merchant and then resided as
factor at Aleppo. Henceforward North’s career was one continuous
run of prosperity. He soon became the chief English merchant in
Constantinople, was elected Treasurer by the Levant Company, and
went on amassing wealth at a great rate, deeming no enterprise too
high or too low for the end he had in view, imparting to everything
he did a touch of his own original genius.
The ordinary Englishman in the polyglot Levant was content to
transact his business through interpreters. North would have
nothing to do with vicarious communication. He acquired Italian,
which was the Lingua Franca of the Near East, the debased Spanish
spoken by the Jews of Turkey--descendants of the refugees
expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella--who had made themselves
indispensable as brokers to Franks and Turks alike, and (a much
rarer accomplishment) the Turkish tongue. Moreover, he learnt the
laws of Turkey. In litigation before a Turkish court he was his
own pleader, as in conversation he was his own interpreter. He
did not, however, trust implicitly to his own intimacy with the
subtleties of Ottoman Justice. He kept a tame Cadi to whose advice
he had recourse upon occasion. Further, before a trial, he took
care to make his case known to the judge and to quicken the judge’s
intelligence with a present. When his case came on, if North had
no true witnesses to produce, he produced false ones. Indeed, he
preferred the latter kind on principle, having found by experience
that a false witness was safer; for, if the judge had a mind to
confuse a witness, an honest man who did not know the game could
not so well wriggle through the net of captious questions as a
rogue versed in all its rules.
The Honourable Dudley showed equal tact in his other dealings
with the Turks. Not the least remunerative of his occupations was
usury--lending money to necessitous pashas at 20 or 30 per cent.
Now, by Turkish law all interest was illegal, and the debtor could
not be forced to pay a farthing on that score. So a world of
cunning and caution was needed, and the wisest might suffer through
inadvertence. To avoid accidents, North combined hospitality with
business. He built and furnished a room where his victims could
loll on soft cushions, sip endless cups of coffee and liquids
stronger than coffee, smoke endless tchibooks in safety (under
Mohammed IV. tobacco was rigorously forbidden), and be fleeced
in comfort. The host, it goes without saying, was not fastidious
about the morals of his guests. No narrow prejudices of virtue ever
hindered his familiarity with all human beings that chance might
fling in his way. The sinner and the saint were equally welcome,
so long as there was anything to be got out of them. Among his most
intimate boon companions and clients was a particularly unsavoury
captain of one of the Grand Signor’s galleys. North used to lend
him money and also to palm off upon him his rotten cloths.
The fertility of North’s invention did not stop there. His shrewd
study of human nature had taught him that men are influenced by
externals far more than by essentials. He endeavoured to make the
Turks feel at home with him by making himself outwardly like one of
them. Knowing their prejudice against clean-shaven faces he grew
a prodigious pair of moustaches, such as the best of them had. He
tried to sit cross-legged, as they sat, and learnt to write as they
wrote, resting the paper on his left hand, and making the lines
slope from the left top corner downwards. He taught himself to use
parables, apologues, and figures of speech, as they did, and to
swear as they swore. Of this last accomplishment he was especially
proud. He held that for purposes of vituperation Turkish was more
apt than any other language, and he grew so accustomed to its
aptness that even when he returned home his tongue would run into
Turkish blasphemy of itself. Let us add another external trait that
tended to make this infidel acceptable to true believers, though
it was a trait for which he was indebted to nature rather than to
self-culture. “It seems,” says his biographer, “that after he found
his heart’s ease at Constantinople he began to grow fat, which
increased upon him, till, being somewhat tall and well whiskered,
he made a jolly appearance, such as the Turks approve most of all
in a man.”
North’s pains to please had not been wasted. The Turks whom he
entertained at 30 per cent were so delighted with this wonderful
Giaour that they pressed him to become really and wholly one of
them by abjuring his false religion. North always parried these
awkward blandishments with his usual adroitness. He never argued on
religion, or indeed on any other subject, with the Turks. Nobody
likes to be contradicted, and the Turks were not accustomed to bear
dissent from a Giaour. Our Treasurer would not lose profitable
customers for any consideration. He had not gone to Constantinople
to quarrel but to climb; and he had long since learnt that at
Constantinople, as elsewhere, climbing could only be performed in
the same posture as crawling. So without attempting to argue, he
laughed away the suggestion of apostasy by saying, “My father wore
a hat and left that hat to me. I wear it because my father left it,
and”--clapping his hands on his head--“I will wear it as long as I
live!” He knew the Turks well enough to know that he lost nothing
in their eyes by his attachment to the paternal hat. For though
keen on proselytising--always by temptation and persuasion, hardly
ever by constraint--they had little respect for the proselyte.
By such means our Treasurer waxed not only wealthy but also wise.
The Turks, as a rule, were too proud to converse familiarly
with Christians, thinking (perhaps not without reason) that few
Christians were worthy of their confidence. The result was that the
English and other Franks who lived amongst them and dealt with them
knew about as much of Turkish life, of Turkish ways of thought,
of Turkish maxims of conduct, as an undesirable alien dwelling
in Whitechapel knows of English life. Dudley North was the only
Frank who, thanks to his natural adaptability and flexibility,
had contrived to insinuate himself, more or less, into the spirit
of Turkey. On those occasions of convivial expansion, while his
guests sedulously swilled his liquids, North not less sedulously
pumped their minds. He picked up every hint that dropped from their
lips, hoarded it in his retentive memory, connected it with other
hints, and, assisted by uncommonly quick powers of deduction and
induction, learnt a good deal more in five minutes than the average
European would in as many months. Conscious of his unique position
as a first-hand authority on the Turks, he thought very little of
Rycaut as an expert in the religion, manners, and politics of the
Ottoman Empire. He described his work as very shallow. Once he went
over the whole of it, and noted on the margin its errors. That
copy, with some other curiosities he had collected and a Turkish
dictionary he had compiled, was stolen from him. He could never
discover the thief, but he thought that the things he had lost
might perhaps be found among the belongings of the Rev. John Covel.
From this it would appear that the Consul and the Chaplain had not
an admirer in our Treasurer. Nor, it may be presumed, had he in
them fanatical worshippers.
Such was the Honourable Dudley: independent, self-reliant,
holding in profound contempt the weaknesses, stupidities, and
conventionalities of his neighbours; yet withal knowing how to use
them for his own ends; a man infinitely flexible of plan, but
fixed of purpose, and, happen what might, intent not to play the
dilettante in this world.[69]
FOOTNOTES:
[54] “Dragoman” is of course a clumsy transliteration of
the Turkish, or rather Arabic, _Targuman_, interpreter.
Seventeenth-century Englishmen gave to this word many forms,
more or less fantastic and more or less remote from the original
(_drichman_, _truckman_, etc.), but it most commonly figures as
Druggerman (pl. Druggermen).
[55] See _e.g._ Harvey to Arlington, Dec. 4, 1670; April 30, July
19, 27, 1671, _S.P. Turkey_, 19. But the most eloquent testimonial
to Dragoman information is furnished by Harvey’s Secretary: “Here
seldome happens anything worthy remarke and when there does it is
so uncertainly reported to us by our Druggermen who are our only
Intelligencers, that experience makes us very incredulous; what
wee heare one day is com͡only contradicted the next, and shou’d I
give you a dayly account of things according to your desire, my
busines wou’d bee almost every other Letter to disabuse you in what
I had writt to you before.”--Geo. Etherege to Joseph Williamson;
Endorsed: “R. 8 May, 1670,” _ibid._
[56] Rycaut’s _Present State_, pp. 169-70. For examples of the
terrorism exercised by the Turks towards European envoys and
their Dragomans, see that work, pp. 155 foll., as well as the
same author’s _History of the Turkish Empire_, and his _Memoirs_,
_passim_.
[57] Finch to Coventry, Jan. 6-16, 1675-76, _Coventry Papers_.
[58] See _Finch Report_, p. 521.
[59] “A man of singular parts, an excellent gentleman’s
companion, capable to undertake and go through with any business
whatsoever.”--Lord Pagett to the Right Hon. James Vernon, July 23,
1698, _S.P. Turkey_, 21.
[60] Winchilsea to Sir Heneage Finch, Jan. 11, 1662 [-3], _Finch
Report_, p. 233. How much the Ambassador owed to his Secretary is
shown by a comparison between his despatches and Rycaut’s _Memoirs_.
[61] Pepys, after the Great Fire, which burnt most of the first
edition, had to pay 55 shillings for a copy. It is true that this
was one of the six copies printed with coloured pictures, “whereof
the King and Duke of York and Duke of Monmouth, and Lord Arlington
had four.”--_Diary_, March 20, April 8, 1667.
[62] Arlington to Winchilsea, Oct. 13, 1666, _Finch Report_, p. 442.
[63] “Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel,” in _Early
Voyages and Travels in the Levant_, Introd. p. xxix. This essay
can be safely recommended only to experts capable of checking its
innumerable ineptitudes.
[64] See such a scene in his _Diaries_, p. 145, where for the
printed date “Nov. 8th 1674” read “Nov. 8th 1671” (cp. his _Account
of the Greek Church_, Pref. p. xi).
[65] Greek for priest: so the English in the Levant styled their
parsons familiarly.
[66] Among the State Papers at the P.R.O. (_Turkey_, 19) there are
several letters from him to Lord Arlington and his secretary Joseph
Williamson. The one in which Covel congratulates this very mediocre
gentleman (to whom he was a perfect stranger) on his elevation to
the post of Principal Secretary of State, dated “Pera, Jan. 8th
1674-5,” breaks all the records of adulation known even to that
sycophantic age.
[67] See Appendix VII.
[68] See Appendix VIII.
[69] My sketch of Dudley North is based on the _Life_ of him by
Roger North. It is amusing to find the biographer, who idealised
and idolised his brother, holding him up as a pattern of
truthfulness, probity, and honour, and at the same time relating
all the above facts, without the least suspicion of the impression
that some of them might convey to an unbiassed reader.