HALCYON DAYS
The Plague over, Sir John resumed his quiet life at Pera; and for
the space of a twelvemonth we find him resting on his laurels and
garnering the fruits of his labour complacently.
He had, indeed, much cause for complacency. Our Levant Trade
flourished as never before, and the Constantinople Factors were
guilty of no exaggeration when they told the Ambassador that it was
twice, if not thrice, bigger than the trade of all other European
nations put together. Sir John took the keenest interest in this
progress and foresaw even greater development at the expense of
our rivals, if only we would sell on credit, as they did, and if
we could keep the privileges secured by the new Capitulations in
force. As to the first point, the Ambassador’s exhortations fell on
deaf ears. The Levant Company had a rooted objection to the credit
system, being on the contrary persuaded that the growth of their
business was due to the prohibition of “Trusting” which they had
enacted a few years before.[173]
Nor did the home authorities sufficiently appreciate the
Ambassador’s services with regard to the Capitulations. As so often
happens, the giver and the recipient differed widely about the
value of the gift. Indeed, the Levant Company’s attitude in this
matter was so ungracious and ungrateful that Sir John, stung to
the quick, wrote to the Secretary of State: “Lett them make the
Service as mean as they please now they are in possession of it;
were the new Articles I obtaind, to be again procurd’, I very well
know at what rate they would be content to purchase them. Neither
in the estimate of their advantage which I sent your Honour, did
I write any thing more, then what fell from the Merchants mouths
here, before I had obtaind them. But it may be tis esteemd’ by
some a good Method, to depretiate that Merit, which being ownd’;
would become an obligation, and begett the incumbence of an
acknowledgment.”[174] Like others before him, and after him, Sir
John had to learn the lesson that “He who serves a community must
secure a reward by his own means, or expect it from God.”[175]
Particularly hurt was our Ambassador by the total lack of
enthusiasm which both the Merchants and the King showed on the
Article of the figs. The former made no haste to avail themselves
of the concession, and their indifference filled Sir John with the
fear lest the privilege should lapse through disuse. The latter
did not, as he expected, write to the Grand Signor and Vizir to
thank them for the favour conferred upon his kitchen. After waiting
long and in vain, Sir John felt constrained to urge his Majesty
to rectify the omission, though late, “as having tasted and bin
pleasd’ with some of that fruit.” It was clear that people at home
did not care a fig for Smyrna figs. They were wrong; for, under
the “two ships lading” figment, the English were able as time
went on to export vast quantities of dried fruit from Smyrna--and
housewives yet unborn would have blessed the name of their
benefactor, if they knew it.[176]
However, happily for his peace of mind, it was some time before Sir
John heard of this ingratitude; and meanwhile he did everything to
ensure the execution of the Articles he had obtained at the cost of
so much hardship and hazard. The task presented some difficulties;
for, though the Grand Vizir granted the Commands which the
Ambassador asked readily enough, the local officials evinced the
strongest disinclination to part with any profit to which they
had been used. A test case was offered by the Chief Customer of
Constantinople, who, on the arrival of the first English ship,
detained five bales of cloth--the duty in kind which he had been in
the habit of levying under the old Capitulations. Finch immediately
sent his Dragoman with the new Capitulations and required Hussein
Aga to restore the goods at his peril. The Customer complied,
but, at the same time, got the Vizir’s Kehayah to write to the
Ambassador complaining that the English merchants were trying to
defraud the Grand Signor. Sir John’s reply was that his good friend
the Kehayah was misinformed: the merchants were not to blame, for
they acted by his own order. To the Customer also he declared
that if any English merchants should dare, directly or indirectly,
pay for any cloth one asper more than the sum specified in the new
Capitulations, he would imprison them, adding that for what he
did he had the Grand Signor’s oath and hand, and if the Customer
engaged in a dispute on that point, either he or the Ambassador
must sink. This peremptory message made Hussein Aga submit to the
new dispensation. Sir John, however, did not rest satisfied with
his victory: to prevent any “after claps,” he exacted from the
Customer a letter to the Kehayah formally acknowledging the justice
of our proceedings, and this letter he caused to be registered
by the Cadi as well as in his own Cancellaria. The effect of his
action appeared when, on the arrival at Constantinople of two more
ships, the goods passed through the Custom-House without the least
controversy. At Aleppo he met with similar opposition and overcame
it with equal success. And all this without any bakshish, except a
few judiciously distributed bottles of Canary, “which the Grandees
at Court baptize by the name of English sherbett.” In the same way,
every other question relating to commerce was settled as it arose
by means of Imperial Commands, so that in a year’s time the New
Articles were firmly established over the Empire.
Not a little of this success was due to the happy termination
of our Tripolitan enterprise, which “has given great reputation
and terrour to His Majesty’s arms in this Court.” While Finch
was negotiating at Adrianople, Narbrough had been capturing or
destroying pirate galleys; and, on January 14th, 1676, the boats
of his squadron had even forced their way into the port of
Tripoli and there burnt four men-of-war. The upshot of these bold
operations was a Peace by which the Dey agreed to release all
English captives, to pay an indemnity, and to grant a number of
commercial privileges. The Ambassador made the most of our triumph.
As soon as he received from the Admiral the terms of the Treaty, he
sent his Dragoman to inform the Kehayah, who said that he believed
the Grand Vizir’s letters had helped to bring the Tripolines to
reason. The Dragoman was far too polite and prudent to contradict a
Turk, but he remarked that “the firing of their men-of-warr in port
had much of perswasion in it.” “Wee know it, wee know it,” replied
the Kehayah, with a laugh.[177]
Other circumstances helped Finch to strengthen his position at the
Porte. In the spring of 1676 the Grand Signor, after ten years’
absence, surprised Constantinople by appearing in its environs: a
step which was hailed as a sign that the sovereign’s distrust of
his capital had vanished, and that henceforth he would refresh the
eyes of its inhabitants with his presence and fill their purses
by his extravagance. It is true that these expectations were not
fulfilled. Instead of taking up his abode in the Seraglio which
had been prepared for him, the Grand Signor encamped outside the
city “like an enemy,” and only ventured to pay spasmodic visits
to some of its mosques. Nevertheless, the vicinity of his camp,
with all its pomp, created a welcome diversion for the Franks as
well as for the Turks. The Rev. John Covel was once more in his
element. With a roving, inquisitive eye, he prowled about the
Imperial tents, comparing them with those he had seen at Adrianople
and taking stock of every detail.[178] The Ambassador himself was
not less excited. He reports to the Secretary of State the various
theories current about the motives which had induced the Sultan to
come so near and those which prevented him from coming any nearer;
he describes his movements; and he relates how adroitly he managed
to turn them to account. The Sultan often went by water from place
to place. Finch noted this, and one day, “making inquisition when
His Majesty would passe,” he ordered the two English ships in
port to give him a salute; and that the performance might be more
impressive he ordered the guns to be fired from the lower tier: so
that they might speak louder than those of two Algerine men-of-war
which were also then in port. His orders were carried out to the
letter. As the Grand Signor passed by our ships, a fanfare from
their trumpets entertained him: when he was a little past them,
they began to fire: 31 guns from the _Mary and Martha_, and 21
from the _Hunter_. The Grand Signor stopped his barge to receive
the salute, and till it was quite done rowed very slowly. The
performance was repeated on his return; “which was very kindly
taken.”[179] Presently, “by reason of dust in foule weather, dust
in fayr weather, and want of water,” the Grand Signor pitched his
camp in a new place--“just before my house, and I sitt at dinner in
the Prospect of His own Tent and His Trayn about Him!”[180]
Then, suddenly, turning from the contemplation of externals, our
Ambassador penetrates for a moment into the passions that seethed
inside those stately pavilions.
There lived in Stambul an unvenerable old Princess, popularly
known as Sultana “Sporca,” or “the Dirty”--an epithet which she
had earned by making it her profession to bring up young girls for
the entertainment of the grandees. Among her troupe of nymphs she
had “a Circassian slave that was extraordinaryly beautifull, and
did dance, sing, and tumble in the height of perfection after the
Turkish mode.” During the previous year the Grand Signor, hearing
of this prodigy, had sent for her. But the old lady, unwilling to
lose so lucrative a pupil, evaded the Imperial command by alleging
that she had given the girl her freedom and therefore could not
dispose of her. Now, however, the truth came out. One day, while
the girl was exercising her arts for the amusement of some pashas,
she attracted the attention of the Captain of the Grand Vizir’s
Guard, who gave her 300 sequins and sent 1000 more to the Sultana
on condition that she let the damsel and her companions perform
in his house. The Sultana readily agreed to the bargain; but she
reckoned without her client. After the performance the gallant
Captain, while dismissing the other members of the troupe, kept
the handsome slave. Next morning the Sultana petitioned the Grand
Signor, confessing her former deception. The Grand Signor, enraged
at his own disappointment, ordered the Sultana to be banished, the
damsel to be annexed to his harem, and the Captain’s head to be
exposed in his camp: “So true is that of Virgil:
“Quisquis amores
Aut metuet dulces, aut experietur amaros.”[181]
His Christian colleagues this year afforded our Ambassador as much
food for self-satisfaction as the Ottoman Court. There had lately
arrived at Constantinople two new Ministers: a Venetian Ambassador
and a Genoese Resident. The former, Signor Morosini, who had
already represented Venice at Paris and Vienna, was “an experiencd’
and dexterous” diplomat with whom one found it easy to maintain
“good corrispondence.” The latter, Signor Spinola, “really acts
such low and mean things that he exposes the dignity of a Publique
Minister both to Turkes and Christians” and renders friendly
intercourse with him impossible.
On Spinola’s arrival, which occurred during our absence at
Adrianople, Finch had ordered the merchant left in charge of
the Embassy to compliment him in his name. Yet when the Genoese
sent his Dragoman to Adrianople, he gave him no orders to make
any compliment to Finch. We magnanimously passed this slight by,
attributing it to “his want of breeding and experience.” Some
weeks later, finding himself embroiled with his predecessor,
Spinola begged for our mediation--a request to which we acceded,
only to hear suddenly, not from Spinola himself but from a third
quarter, that a reconciliation had been effected through the good
offices of the Bailo of Venice and the Resident of Holland. This
discourtesy also we put up with patiently. But at last the Genoese
did something we could not digest.
“The story is this. S: Spinola brought over with Him a pittifull
fellow under the name of a Merchant, who sett up His onely Trade of
Distilling strong waters (a thing in the highest degree forbidden
by the Turkes). For secrecy He with Jewes that assisted Him make
their Destillation in an upper Room where there was no chimney;
This comes to the Notice of the Community of Pera, amongst whom
three of my Druggermen are the chief; The Community reflecting upon
the last firing of Galata by destilling of strong waters, Resolvd’
amongst themselves to goe to the Laboratory and complain of the
danger Apprehended. My First Druggerman, being Prior or Chief
Magistrate, accompanyd’ with others went to the House, and finding
at the Door two Jew servants to this Distiller, tells them that
the Community if they did not leave of (_sic_) their distilling of
strong waters where there was no chimney nor hearth, they would
complain to the Chimacam, who immediately would send those Jewes
to the Gally’s. Their Master comming home the Jewes tell him what
happend’, The small Merchant Recurrs to his Resident, His Resident
sends him to me, He relates His story, I askd’ Him what He was, He
told me He was a Merchant that came over with the Resident, I told
Him that I usd’ not to receive messages from Publick Ministers but
by Druggermen or their own Secretary’s, nor to other Informations
would I give any credence. However having taken my Informations
from my First Druggerman I sent my Third Druggerman to the
Resident, first to tell him that either He knew not the Respect
due to Publick Ministers Here, or else that He was very wanting in
it towards me, in sending me a message neither by his Secretary
nor his Druggerman, That the grounds of this complaint were so
just, that must in my own name renew the complaint against this
Destiller in order to the Preservation of my Merchants’ estates, as
well as of my Druggermen’s Houses, That what my First Druggerman
had sayd’ was to the Jewes and not to His Merchant and that they
would certainly goe into the Gally’s if the Destillator continud’
His Trade there, That however he had never enterd’ into the House,
but sayd’ this to them in the street. The Resident answerd’ That he
knew Signor Giorgio Drapery’s very well, and knew as well that he
was not within the House, For had he gon in, he should have mett
with Bastonate.
“Upon the return of this answer I sent him word, That both with
the Ambassadour of France and Bailo of Venice, Persons of the same
character with me, our meanest servants were mutually treated with
greater respect then he showd’ to my First Druggerman, Knight
of Jerusalem, and of the most Noble and Ancient family in this
Country, and that therefore, unlesse that the Resident did make
Him some Reparation or Satisfaction, I must be forcd’ to resent
it: wondring both at His Passion and Indiscretion to say at the
same time he knew him to be my First Druggerman, he should tell the
other Druggerman the Jewes should have bastonadod’ him, had he said
those words within the House.”
Thereupon Signor Spinola’s Secretary came to beg Sir John’s pardon,
offering him all reparation in his master’s name, “even submitting
himselfe to be bastonadod’.” Sir John, however, who felt that he
had been wounded in his most tender point, was not yet satisfied:
to appease him, it was necessary that the atonement should be as
public as the injury: “the thing being Publick and making no passe
to Sigr Giorgio I told him, till he had sent some message to him
I could not admitt of any corrispondence.” Accordingly he cut off
all relations with the Resident and declared to the Secretary
of State that he would continue “so to doe till I have farther
satisfaction.” The Secretary of State duly expressed his resentment
to the Genoese Minister in London. But in the meantime Sir John
had received Spinola’s submission as he desired, in the form of “a
passe toward the personall satisfaction of my Druggerman done in
Publique before my servants, and then after four moneths I returnd’
him his visit.”
Thus ended “this Storm in a Bason.”[182]
Not very long afterwards our Ambassador found himself involved in a
difference with his French colleague.
Sir John’s religious activities at Adrianople had led to a little
coolness between those hitherto firm friends. In five months
Nointel had not paid Finch one visit, and now that he had to see
him on a matter of business (a dispute between the English and
French merchants of Aleppo referred to the adjudication of their
respective ambassadors), he pretended that it was Finch’s turn to
call. Hence a pretty quarrel. Finch declared that he had made the
last visit. Nointel maintained that that visit was a return to one
he had made and insisted that Finch should begin afresh. Finch
protested that this was contrary to the diplomatic practice of
Pera, and “a most dangerous point--to make two visits for one, it
being the note of distinction between Ambassadours and Residents.”
No doubt the noble Marquis’s _amour-propre_ would be gratified by
such a recognition of French superiority, but the honour of his
Majesty did not permit Sir John to afford him that gratification
on any account. Both by letters and by oral messages he assured
Nointel, blandly but firmly, that, unless he made the first visit,
all intercourse between them would cease. “And certainly,” he wrote
to the Secretary of State, “I shall not give way to him one hair,
without the orders of the King my Master.” Courteous as Sir John
was, he could be very obstinate where his King’s honour was at
stake.
For three weeks both ambassadors remained immovable; and then the
Frenchman sent to inform the Englishman that he desired to call on
him in the afternoon. But it so chanced that Finch had just engaged
himself for that very afternoon to the Bailo of Venice. He was
therefore forced to beg Nointel to excuse him for that day. It was
a most unfortunate _contretemps_: Finch, on one hand, feared that
Nointel might think he had put a slight upon him by feigning that
engagement, and on the other he suspected that perhaps Nointel had
heard of it and, knowing that it was impossible for him to receive
his visit that day, imagined that the offering of it should serve
for the having paid it and oblige Sir John to make one in return.
Tormented by these doubts, he sent his own Dragoman to repeat
his explanations and excuses. Great was his relief when Nointel
appointed the day following for his visit, which accordingly he
performed; and the day after Finch returned it. “So that all things
were reducd’ to the ancient friendship and cheerfullnesse.”[183]
We may picture the noble Marquis once more adorning Sir John’s
dinner-table. Nointel was a great table-talker, and he had varied
experiences which he could narrate with all the vivacity of his
race. But the conversation at our Ambassador’s board must have
seemed to him painfully restrained in its tone and restricted in
its range of subject. It turned persistently on religion, and was
carried on under the unexhilarating auspices of Sir Thomas Baines.
He was the conductor of the theological concert, and there was a
deferential manner in the bearing of the host towards him which
must have stifled in the guest all sense of freedom. What weighty
dogmas Baines uttered, what profundities of erudition he disclosed,
how he answered the arguments he provoked--all these things Finch
noted down with the reverence of a disciple and the vicarious
pride of a lover. In such an atmosphere thoughtless loquacity was
obviously out of place, memories gained in wanton ways had to be
kept under lock and key: the only proper demeanour was that of a
prig or a prude. One day the Frenchman, who was neither, stirred
by Florentine wine or by the spirit of mischief, kicked over the
traces. After a discussion concerning the Crucifixion, he wandered
off into some reminiscences of his early life in Paris. Sir Thomas
listened scandalised but self-possessed: of the jarring sensations
that ran along his spinal cord there was no sign upon his austere
countenance; only when the raconteur had done, he leaned forward
and remarked:
“_Che dirà il Crucifisso?_”
The reproof brought the errant Marquis back to his actual
milieu and its proprieties. He was, Sir John tells us, “struck
dumbfounded and was filled with astonishment at so unexpected a
glosse, which he sayd was a more efficacious sermon then he had
heard from the Capuchin Fryers.”[184] What he said to himself we do
not know.
From these trivialities, which enveloped his mind like fine-spun
cobwebs, Sir John was suddenly roused by a very serious event:
nothing less than the death of the great Ahmed Kuprili.
At the approach of the autumnal equinox the Grand Signor broke
up his camp and began his migration to Adrianople. The Vizir
was then ill--so ill that he refused Sir John’s request for a
farewell audience with these words: “If God pleasd’, wee should
meet in the Spring, but then he was not in a state to receive my
Visit.” Nevertheless, Ahmed followed his master in a galley as
far as Selivria, where our Ambassador’s Dragoman, who had been
sent to obtain some Commands, saw him, on his landing, carried by
four persons to a litter, on which, too weak to sit upright, he
stretched himself at full length. In this critical condition he
went on another day’s journey, and at that point, his strength
failing him, he had to be taken a mile off the road into a private
house. Mindful of the public interest to the very last, he called
his Kehayah and ordered him to march with the army to Adrianople.
The Kehayah, with tears in his eyes, begged to be allowed to stay
and wait upon him, saying that no man could serve him with so much
care or so much affection. “No,” replied Ahmed, “the Gran Signor’s
Army ought not to want a Head, and since I cannot, you must Head
them.”
The Grand Signor at the moment was, as usual, hunting; but as
soon as news of the Vizir’s state reached him, he hastened to
his bedside--a signal proof of the sentiments which the master
cherished towards his illustrious servant. Sir John was deeply
impressed: “I must needs say,” he writes, “That I have read of
the Privacy’s of many Great Ministers of State with their Prince,
I have livd’ to be no stranger to the story’s of the Modern
one’s. But Nothing in Christendome neither Card: Richlieu, Card:
Mazarin, or Don Louis de Haro, or any other Christian favourite
can parallell either the Power, Influence, or Intimacy, That this
Gran Visir had with this Emperour.” Thus Ahmed lingered on till the
24th of October, when he succumbed to a dropsy inherited from his
father but intensified by worries of government, hardships of war,
and excessive indulgence in strong waters. He had ruled the Ottoman
Empire for fifteen years, and at the time of his death he was not
above forty-five.
His body was brought back to Constantinople in a plain coach drawn
by six horses and attended by only half-a-dozen footmen. It was
taken to a mosque where the Kaimakam and other dignitaries awaited
it with the religious ministers, and was laid in the same sepulchre
as his father’s. No pomp distinguished Ahmed’s funeral from that
of an ordinary pasha. But the mourning was universal. Moslems and
Christians, natives and aliens joined in paying tribute to the
virtues of the departed statesman, to his moderation, his justice,
his inflexible probity. He was a pasha free from greed; he was
an autocrat who knew how to temper absolutism with gentleness: a
memorable, and in some respects a unique exemplar of a beneficent
despot. The English, in particular, remembered with gratitude
Ahmed’s scrupulous observance of their Capitulations, and his
readiness to punish any official who violated them. It was not
probable that they would see his like again.
To Sir John Finch the death of Ahmed, “my Great and Good friend,”
came as a severe shock, and it evoked from him a eulogy more
eloquent in its unaffected simplicity than any elaborate panegyric:
“Most certainly He was a Great Minister of State, and Master of
Great Resolutions; For whatsoever He sett upon He allwayes went
through. He was undoubtedly Just; and the freest from Corruption of
any that ever held that charge, for He was no lover of mony.” How
was the event likely to affect himself? This question, naturally,
mingled itself with Sir John’s sorrow: “I hope things will not upon
the change of the Ministers change their Face too; But the Truth is
In the Visir I lost a True friend, and with Him all the Rest, For
they will be Turnd’ out of their severall charges, so that I must
begin my Interest anew.”[185]
Immediately on Ahmed’s death the Seal was carried by his brother
to the Grand Signor and, according to general expectation, was
conferred upon Mustafa Pasha--commonly called Kara Mustafa, or
Black Mustafa, from the darkness of his complexion. He was a man
of fifty-three. Having begun as a page in the household of old
Mohammed Kuprili and married his daughter, he had risen under that
Vizir to the position of Capiji-bashi. Ahmed had made him Capitan
Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, and, on going to Candia, left him as
his Deputy with the Sultan. Mustafa had taken the utmost advantage
of this proximity to the sovereign, pandering to all his passions
and always accompanying him in his hunting. He was just about to
marry one of the Grand Signor’s daughters--a damsel of six.
As soon as the appointment was announced, Sir John hastened to find
out all about Kara Mustafa’s character and antecedents, so that he
might from the past form a forecast of the future. Information was
easy to obtain: a person who had for so many years been the second
grandee in the Empire had naturally become an object of interested
study to every one that came into contact with the Court. Had he
access to the Foreign Office archives, Finch would have found a
terse summary of the new Vizir’s character from the pen of Sir
Daniel Harvey’s secretary: “well spoken, subtill, corrupt, and a
great dissembler.”[186] As it was, he learnt that Kara Mustafa
was reputed “a Great Souldyer, and a Great Courtier; and of a
very Active Genious.” But these qualities were marred by two very
pronounced vices: avarice and arrogance. The English merchants had
suffered from his cupidity, and all the foreign envoys from his
pride. These reports made Sir John uneasy: he saw the outlines of
trouble in the future: he had a disquieting sense of uncertainty;
but he hoped that the example of his famous predecessor and the
responsibility of his present position might cure Kara Mustafa of
his propensities.
The new Grand Vizir began his career after a fashion which
justified Sir John’s best hopes. He removed no Minister from his
post, except the Kehayah, a necessary measure, and he softened it
by making him Master of the Horse to the Sultan: a place which, if
less profitable, was not less honourable. Neither did he put any
man to death, except a paymaster, and that was an act of justice
rather than of severity, for the official had been convicted of
paying out false money. In brief, Ahmed’s death did not seem to
have produced any change at the Porte other than the change of
the Vizir’s person. Sir John felt reassured: much as he missed
the suave Kehayah, he was glad to know that he still occupied a
position of influence; and that, apart from this alteration, he
would not have “to begin his Interest anew.” As late as the first
of March 1677 he was able to write: “Both with the Court it selfe
and the Publick Ministers that reside Here, things passe with me
so peaceably that I am in a perfect calme.” Indeed, the Government
was so “regular,” that, in the dearth of “occurrences of remarque,”
the Ambassador could scarcely find “materialls enough to furnish a
Dispatch.”[187]
For the fact is that Kara Mustafa was to be six months a Grand
Vizir before anything happened. But what then happened was in
itself a drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[173] See Appendix XII.
[174] Finch to Coventry, May 26: S.V. 1677. See also Appendix XIII.
[175] Such was the mournful reflection of a contemporary merchant
who, after doing the “Nation” a great service at Constantinople,
got not “common thanks and scarce good looks” for his pains. See
_Life of Dudley North_, p. 102.
[176] Richard Pococke, who visited Smyrna in 1739, notes: “they
export a great quantity of raisins to England, under the pretence
of a privilege they have by our Capitulations of loading so many
ships for the King’s table.”--_A Description of the East_ (London:
1745), Bk. II. ch. i.
[177] Finch to Coventry, May 4-14, _Coventry Papers_; the Same to
Right Hon. [Joseph Williamson], May 31: S.V. 1676, _S.P. Turkey_,
19.
[178] Covel’s _Diaries_, pp. 163-8.
[179] Finch to Coventry, May 4-14.
[180] The Same to the Same, June 20-30, 1676.
[181] Finch to Coventry, Aug. 4-14, 1676. Cp. Covel’s _Diaries_,
pp. 160-2; Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, pp. 331-2.
[182] Finch to Coventry, Jan. 6 16, 1675-76; May 4-14; Aug. 4-14,
1676.
[183] Finch to Coventry, Aug. 4-14, enclosing Nointel to Finch (in
French), Aug. 11 and 13 (N.S.); Finch to Nointel (in Italian), Aug.
2-12 and 4-14. The Same to the Same, Aug. 29/Sept. 8, 1676.
[184] Malloch’s _Finch and Baines_, p. 68.
[185] Finch to Coventry, Oct. 26, S.V. 1676. Cp. Rycaut to John
Field “At Mr Secretary Coventry’s office att Whitehall,” Dec. 13,
_Coventry Papers_; Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, pp. 332-3.
[186] George Etherege to Joseph Williamson, letter endorsed “R.
8 May, 1670,” _S.P. Turkey_, 19. It is interesting to compare
this verdict with this: “One of the most refined witts, the most
accomplished Courtier, and a person of the greatest experience,”
Rycaut to Field, _loc. cit._ Etherege was a poet, Rycaut a
historian; which of the two had a truer insight time was to show.
[187] Finch to Coventry, Nov. 20-30, 1676; March 1-11, 1676-77. Cp.
Rycaut to Field, _loc. cit._, Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, pp. 334-5.