THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE
Early in March 1677 Mohammed IV. returned to Constantinople,
followed three weeks later by his Vizir; and behold, all of a
sudden, the government which hitherto had been a model of mildness
took on a face such as “the Oldest Man here never saw.”[188] Of
this metamorphosis the representatives of foreign States became
aware when they asked to be permitted to offer the new Grand Vizir
their felicitations.
Before this epoch Christian envoys had often been subject to
contumely, violence, and outrage at the hands of the Grand Signor’s
curious Ministers. But no attempt had ever been made to treat them
systematically as pariahs. To Kara Mustafa--“an embitterd’ enemy
to all Christians,” as Sir John calls him--belongs the credit of
evolving out of those desultory essays in truculence a regular
system of calculated indecency--a system which was to endure
for more than a hundred years, becoming, in course of time, as
established things do, respectable, consecrated, all but decent.
He it was who collected every planless affront, threat of rage,
artifice of greed--every caprice of a decrepit despotism,--and
wove them all together into one net of humiliation out of which
only force could liberate its victims.
The process was inaugurated with the representative of France, the
excitable Marquis de Nointel, who, eager for precedence, hastened
to seek the first audience, and after a month’s solicitations
secured an appointment. His Dragomans then, according to custom,
asked to have the number of _kaftans_ which were to be bestowed
upon the Ambassador fixed; but they were told that the Ambassador
was to expect none. This was only a slight prelude to what was to
follow: “where,” as Sir John sententiously remarks, “the Preface
speaks innovations, the body of the discourse will have them at
large.”
On arriving at the Porte on the appointed day (Sunday, April 22nd),
Nointel had to wait three whole hours in the room of the Kehayah--a
surly Turk--without conversation or any other entertainment; and
when at last he was called in, he found the narrow corridor that
led to the Audience Chamber crowded with chaoushes who jostled
him most rudely. Truth to tell, this rudeness, at all events, was
not premeditated. The poor chaoushes had come in the turbans of
ceremony worn on such occasions, but had been ordered by the Vizir
to go and exchange them for their ordinary headgear: hence their
hurry to get back to their places before the Ambassador made his
entry. Nointel, however, whose nerves were already on edge with
the long waiting, saw in their behaviour a fresh insult, and he
elbowed his way down the passage fiercely flinging the chaoushes
to right and left against the walls. In this temper he entered the
Audience Chamber, and there he observed something at which his
resentment reached the height of exasperation: the stool destined
for him was not upon the Soffah, but on the floor below! He ordered
his Dragoman to set it where it should be; one of the Vizir’s pages
brought it down again. Then the Ambassador, in a towering rage,
seized the stool with his own hand, carried it to the Soffah, and
sat upon it.
When this act was reported to the Vizir, who was in an adjoining
apartment, he sent for the Ambassador’s Dragoman and commanded
him to tell his master that he must move his seat back where he
had found it. The trembling Dragoman delivered the message and
was bidden by the angry Ambassador to hold his tongue. Next the
Vizir sent his own Dragoman, Dr. Mavrocordato, with whom Nointel
maintained the closest friendship. In vain did the Greek try to
soothe the enraged Frenchman, imploring him to moderate his temper
and yield gracefully to the inevitable. Nothing could prevail over
M. de Nointel’s obstinacy: the pride of the wig was pitted against
the pride of the turban, and it must be remembered that both wigs
and turbans were then at their zenith. In the end, Mavrocordato,
finding argument useless, changed his tone and said, in Italian:
“The Grand Vizir commands the chair to be placed below.” Nointel
replied: “The Grand Vizir can command his chair: he cannot command
me.” At that moment the Chaoush-bashi burst into the room, roaring,
“_Calder, calder_--Take it away, take it away!”--and before he
knew what was happening, Nointel found the stool snatched from
under him. In an access of fury, his Excellency dashed out of the
room, sword on shoulder, pushed his way through the throng, and,
ordering the presents which he had brought to follow him, mounted
his horse and departed, exciting, as he boasted, by his firmness,
“the astonishment of the Turks and the joy of the French.” Kara
Mustafa alone remained calm. His comment, when he heard that the
Ambassador was gone, was one word: “_Gehennem_” (Let him go to
Hell).[189]
One barbarous word, that can be shown to be authentic, is worth
volumes of descriptive writing.
Such was the beginning of the celebrated “Affaire du Sofa”--a
quarrel which drew the attention of all Europe and nearly led to a
rupture between France and Turkey. The question arises: was Nointel
justified in resenting so violently Kara Mustafa’s innovation?
Here, more fitly perhaps than afterwards, we may discuss this
question, and try to obtain that true perspective of things,
without which there can be no true understanding of our story, nor
any appreciation of the agitations and mortifications which its
chief character underwent from that day onward for about eight
months to come.
Much ridicule has been poured by modern English writers upon the
vanity of seventeenth-century French courtiers--a foible which made
the most insignificant trifles swell in their minds to matters of
the highest moment. What, indeed, could be more puerile than for
the representative of a great monarch to quarrel with the head of
the Government to which he was accredited about the position of a
stool? But we, wise democrats of to-day, ought not to be surprised
that frivolous nobles of the old régime displayed such childish
folly and petulance: these are the natural characteristics of every
monarchical régime, of every hereditary aristocracy, melancholy
features of a state of things which has now happily passed away.
That the French nobility under Louis XIV. carried punctiliousness
to the length of absurdity is well known to readers of contemporary
French literature: the memoirs and letters of the men and women
who composed the Court of Louis are full of serious, sometimes
dangerous, disputes arising out of the most ludicrous points of
etiquette, and narrated with a becoming sense of their importance.
Nowhere was this triumph of Ceremonialism over common sense more
notable than in the rules that governed diplomatic relations.
But--a thing forgotten by modern critics--the French Republic
of our time is hardly less tenacious of ceremonial forms in
its international relations than the French Monarchy was. Nay,
democratic America herself, as everybody acquainted with her
State Department will bear witness, sets as much store by these
trifles as any country of aristocratic Europe. The truth is that,
when nations deal with one another, they have to stand on strict
ceremony: forms have been invented to prevent friction; and States
which wish to cultivate mutual friendship are therefore extremely
wary of departing from established usages.
The extreme irritability of M. de Nointel may have been relative
to the nation--a great nation, but a thin-skinned--to which he
belonged. But its cause, however contemptible it may appear to
us, to English diplomats of his time--men not wholly devoid of
understanding--did not appear so.
Sir John Finch was at dinner with some of the merchants, when one
of the Embassy Janissaries, whom Nointel had borrowed from him for
the solemn function, returned home bringing the sensational news
that the French Ambassador, after four hours’ stay at the Porte,
had gone away without audience.
From all he had heard of Kara Mustafa Finch had foreseen that
many strange things would befall; and for that reason, instead of
competing with the Frenchman for precedence, as his habit was,
he had deliberately let him have the first audience: much as the
polite fox in the fable let the elephant try first the rickety
plank that bridged a dangerous-looking stream. Nevertheless, he
was greatly startled by the news. What had happened to Nointel
might happen to him. So, dismissing his guests, he set at once to
work to ascertain what _had_ happened: there was not a moment to
lose; and indeed, before he had completed his investigations, a
messenger arrived from the Porte. Finch easily guessed the purport
of his errand, and in order to gain time for further information
and reflection, he decided to have an attack of diplomatic fever.
To give his fiction verisimilitude, he retired hastily to his
bedroom and received the messenger in his bed. The message was as
he expected: “The Grand Vizir desired that His Excellency should
come to audience on the following morning.” Sir John answered from
his couch that it was a favour which he had sought for, but he was
sorry that his “indisposition of body” would not permit him to
accept it. He prayed the Grand Vizir to excuse him.
Kara Mustafa had no difficulty in diagnosing the “indisposition
of body” which afflicted Sir John, but dissembling his wisdom,
he promptly ordered that, since the Ambassador of England was
indisposed, the Bailo of Venice should take his place next morning,
and the Resident of Holland should come in the afternoon. Both
these diplomats were content to receive their audiences on the
Vizir’s terms, while the Resident of Genoa sought for audience
on those same terms and could not obtain it. Such, then, was the
position of the Diplomatic Corps on the Bosphorus in the spring
of 1677: the French Ambassador in open defiance of the Porte; the
Venetian Ambassador, the Dutch Resident, and the Genoese Resident
in open compliance with it; the English Ambassador alone remained
uncommitted, “as lying under the Maschera of indisposition of body.”
Sir John counted that by his clever strategy he had at least
gained this: that he had not set the example of submission. Had
he done so, the King would have received complaints from all
Christendom that his envoy was the first to put on “the yoke of
this high-minded Visir” and by his example had forced the other
foreign Ministers to take up the same yoke: ay, the meanest of them
would have said that, had he not established a precedent, they
would have scorned to submit. As it was, Sir John had freed himself
from any imputation, and left the others to answer for their own
pusillanimity. “Neverthelesse,” he naïvely admits, “this Maschera
of a distemper at the first seen clearly through both by Turk and
Christian must not be wore long.”
Seven days he considered enough to get well. He spent this period
of convalescence studying the situation and deliberating what
“prudent and wary resolutions” it befitted him to take. Then he
called his Dragomans to him and asked them whether they had ever
known an English ambassador receive from a Grand Vizir audience
with his stool below the Soffah? They answered with one voice No!
such a thing had never been known; and their memories served them
so readily that they went through eight or nine Vizirates by name,
as if they were repeating a lesson they had by heart. Whereupon Sir
John bade them deliver to the Vizir a Memorial which he had drawn
up. In this document the Ambassador informed Kara Mustafa that the
King his master was known to be equal to the greatest prince in
Christendom, but he was even more widely renowned as surpassing
all other princes in the sincerity and constancy of his friendship
towards the Sublime Porte: his Majesty had at all times not only
abstained from sending succours to any of Turkey’s enemies, but
supplied her with whatsoever served for the convenience of peace
or the necessity of war. After thus hinting at his claim to better
treatment than his French colleague, Sir John pointed out that not
only he himself in all his audiences of the deceased Vizir had his
seat upon the Soffah, but that, as far as he could learn, there had
never been an instance of a Vizir denying an English ambassador
such a seat. Lastly, he declared that he was under rigorous
instructions from his King to preserve intact the respect always
rendered him in this Court; and his master might justly shed his
blood, if he should do anything repugnant to his Majesty’s honour
and commands.[190]
When the Dragomans came to the passage in which Finch, as his
composition originally stood, told the Vizir that he had about him
servants of so many years’ standing who knew what the practice had
been under so many Vizirs, they said that they dared not deliver
“such a Paper.”
“Why,” asked the Ambassador, “is this part not true?”
“Yes,” they agreed, “but we dare not say it is so.”
His Excellency had the inconceivable fatuity to retort:
“Do I name you as the informers?”
“No,” was the obvious answer, “but the Vizir must know it can be
none but us.”
It is amazing to find Sir John, in his report to the Secretary
of State, while moralising on the terrors of Turkish tyranny,
also complaining of the “timidity and cowardesse of Druggermen,”
who refused to risk hanging and impaling in order to please
him. However, in the end, finding it impossible to overcome the
Dragomans’ perverse regard for their lives, he couched his Note in
vaguer terms.
To this Note Sir John received no answer for three days, and on
the fourth he had one which he did not know what to make of; it
looked as if Kara Mustafa had been rather annoyed by his Memorial,
though he did not tear it up. So next day he sent his Dragomans
to sound the Rais Effendi. This Minister told them that he
would be sorry to see an ambassador who enjoyed so good credit
at the Porte forfeit it by opposing the Grand Vizir, who, if the
Ambassador came to audience, was ready to embrace him. Encouraged
by this message, Sir John wrote to the Rais Effendi, thanking him
for his friendship, hinting at a more substantial reward for any
good offices he might do him with “the Most Excellent Vizir,” and
protesting his willingness to give his Excellency every possible
satisfaction. His one passion was to maintain his ambassadorial
character with due decorum, to preserve the peace and commerce
according to the “Sacred and Sublime Capitulations,” and to
render to the Imperial Majesty of the Grand Signor “all acts of
obsequiousness and reverence.” His heart being thus disposed, he
hoped that it would be clear “to the lucid understanding of the
Most Excellent Supream Visir” that a first-class Ambassador from
one of the greatest potentates in Christendom ought not to be
treated in parity with a Resident of whatsoever prince, much less
with the Residents of inferior Republics. Therefore he trusted that
some expedient would be found to make a distinction between the
highest and the lowest sorts of foreign Ministers; for he burned
with a desire to do reverence in person to the Most Excellent Vizir
Azem. Such was the tenor of his letter.[191] The Rais Effendi read
it but said nothing.
We may observe here that the distinction between Ambassadors and
Residents which meant so much to European envoys did not exist
for the Turks. Whenever an Ambassador claimed precedence over a
Resident upon the ground of superior rank, they used to say:
“What, has he not a Commission? have you more?” For all diplomatic
agents they had only one name, _Elchi_, and their attitude towards
them all was equally contemptuous.[192] This, however, as we shall
see in the sequel, did not prevent them from exploiting a prejudice
which they did not share.
Having made such advances as he deemed compatible with his dignity
to very little purpose, Sir John resolved to wait and see what Kara
Mustafa’s next move would be. Meanwhile he ordered his Dragomans to
frequent the Porte as usual, so that the other foreign Ministers
might not think that he had either given or taken offence--M. de
Nointel had withdrawn his Dragomans; but Sir John judged himself
“to be in no way, nor in no condition, in his case.” How long the
affair would last or how it would end he had no idea. He wished
he were nearer home that he might have instructions from the King
for his guidance. As it was, he was obliged to walk by his own
lights, hoping that in all he had done hitherto and in all that he
should do hereafter, if he did not deserve his Majesty’s approval,
he might at least obtain his pardon. Of one thing he asked the
Secretary of State to be sure: “I shall to the uttmost of my
possibility keep my selfe off from any condescention.” “For if I
should condescend and the French Ambassadour afterwards gain the
Point, then for him to be receivd’ with a distinction of Honour
from the Ambassadour of the King my Master would be an everlasting
Blemish.” Of course, if he capitulated, Sir John would do his best
to hinder his colleague from stealing a march upon him; but “the
best may not be good enough.” Then, again, there was another thing
to consider: suppose he yielded to the Porte on this point, no man
knew what the Porte would exact next: all the present Ministers
were “sower, ante Christian Turk’s, and very Covetous”; and of them
all Kara Mustafa was the worst. Sir John was unaffectedly afraid of
Kara Mustafa; “and what gives me to fear him the more,” he says,
“is that he is like allway’s to continue Visir; for there was never
no Visir yett that ever was the tenth part, nay the twentyeth, so
free or rather profuse in his gifts to the Gran Signor as he is.”
Now, Kara Mustafa assuredly deserved all, or nearly all, that
Sir John said about him. But it must not be supposed that, in
this particular case, he had not something to say for himself.
His self-justification, according to Sir John’s own report, was
this: Though it might be an undeniable truth that no Vizir had
ever received an ambassador but with his stool upon the Soffah,
yet he, whilst only a Kaimakam, had never received any but with
their stools below the Soffah. It was thus that he had received
M. de Nointel himself, and, what troubled Sir John most, it was
thus that he had received Sir John’s own predecessor Harvey. M. de
Nointel might argue that he had paid Kara Mustafa then only a visit
of courtesy, and that as Ahmed Kuprili, the then Vizir, received
him on the Soffah, he had not thought it worth his while to make
a fuss about a subordinate pasha’s manners. This argument was not
open to Sir John, for when Harvey called on Kara Mustafa, Ahmed
Kuprili being away in Candia, Kara Mustafa acted as his Deputy, nor
was that a mere courtesy call, but a solemn audience. Therefore,
Kara Mustafa reasoned, why should Sir John object to paying him
now, when he was a full-blown Grand Vizir, the respect which his
predecessor had paid him without the least reluctance, when he was
but the Grand Vizir’s shadow?
An interesting point, but not worth dwelling upon. Whether right
was on Kara Mustafa’s side or not, might certainly was; and
he exercised it without pity. Leaving Finch for the moment in
suspense, he turned his undivided attention to Nointel. After
tearing up a Memorial of the French Ambassador’s and abusing the
Dragoman who presented it, he confined the noble Marquis in his
house and threatened to commit him to the Seven Towers--an old
Byzantine fortress which served the purposes of an Ottoman Bastille.
M. de Nointel’s distress was indescribable. From his King he could
expect no support. For some time past, owing to his consistent
failures at the Porte, he had been under a cloud at Versailles--a
cloud that not one ray of royal clemency or one livre from the
royal exchequer came to pierce. An attempt to make both ends meet
by fleecing French merchants with the help of Turkish soldiers
had deepened his disgrace without relieving him permanently from
his financial difficulties. Day after day his debts mounted; day
after day his spirits sank. Creditors clamoured for payment at his
door, and not daring to attack him directly as yet, attacked his
secretaries. Any day he might find himself in the Seven Towers.
At last, in despair, the miserable Marquis sued for peace on the
Grand Vizir’s terms, and only procured it by agreeing to pay him
an extraordinary present of 3000 dollars--in household stuff and
plate, for of ready money he had none. In spite, or perhaps
because, of his abject surrender, the representative of the great
Louis was made to drink the cup of humiliation to its bitterest
dregs. Twice Kara Mustafa summoned him to audience, and twice he
sent him away without audience; and when the third time he did
receive him, he declined to partake of coffee and sherbet, or to
be perfumed with him, but let the Giaour have his refreshments
alone.[193]
Sir John had not been ignorant of Nointel’s overtures to the
Porte, nor was he unaware of the fact that, after the Frenchman’s
capitulation, his own position would be much worse. Yet what could
he do? To forestall Nointel by submitting first would have been too
great a degradation, and would have afforded the French Ambassador
a warrantable excuse for transferring the whole responsibility for
his own submission upon Finch’s shoulders. In this dilemma, our
Ambassador displayed his noted talent for expedients. He ordered
his Dragomans to tell the Vizir’s Kehayah that he had received
instructions from the King of England to thank the Grand Signor
by the Vizir’s mouth for a favour (meaning the Smyrna figs,
though he did not say so), and that he was ready at any time to
wait upon his Excellency, if the Grand Vizir would be pleased to
receive him “with any distinction from the lowest Minister of the
meanest Prince.” But in vain: Nointel’s pliancy had stiffened Kara
Mustafa’s back. So Sir John acquiesced in his destiny, and again
let the Frenchman proceed first. The day after Nointel’s surrender,
he applied for audience without reservations or conditions. He
received a patronising reply, that his “Motion was very good”; but
the Vizir was so taken up with the Polish Treaty that he could not
at present appoint a day. Several times, during the next three
months, Sir John repeated his “motion,” and every time he met with
the same evasive answer.
For the first time since his strategic retreat to his bedroom Sir
John doubted the wisdom of that step. Even now he did not regret
the deed itself--that was worthily done. Any other conduct would
have been inconsistent with punctilious care for the honour of
the King his master. Sir John tried to fortify himself with these
thoughts. But as week after week came and went, and still there
was no invitation to audience, he could not but feel that a deed
which is right in principle may be pernicious in its consequences.
At length, beginning to grow seriously anxious, he begged his
very good friend Hussein Aga to find out the real origin of these
delays. The Chief Customer sent back word that there was not the
least “disgusto” against him at Court: the Polish Treaty really
took up all the Vizir’s time, and he would have his audience in
due course and with due honour--that was the whole truth of the
matter “upon his head.” This reassuring message allayed Sir John’s
anxiety, till--let Sir John himself speak--“till an unpreventable
accident disorderd’ and discomposd’ all things and incensd’ the
Visir so much that He satisfyd’ his passion upon me.”[194]
The accident deserves to be related at some length; for, besides
the effect it had upon our Ambassador’s fortunes, it illustrates
very vividly, if not very pleasantly, the manners of the times and
the morals of the men involved.
An English merchant of Smyrna had lent to a Venetian native of
Candia, called Pizzamano, 3000 dollars, and received some goods as
security. After the merchant’s death, his partner, Mr. John Ashby,
who at the time of the deal was away, found this pledge among the
assets of the deceased, and also found that, in the interval,
Pizzamano had gone bankrupt and was hiding from his creditors.
Although the term of the loan had not yet expired, Mr. Ashby,
fearing no trouble from a man who was unable to show his face,
proceeded to sell the goods at the Consul’s gate, in the usual
Frank fashion, “by inch of candle.”[195] Besides being premature,
the proceeding was irregular in other respects. Turkish law did
not recognise a sale at the Consul’s gate by inch of candle, but
ordained that all auctions should be held in the market-place, by
leave of the Cadi, and after three days’ public notice. Further,
it must be observed that Mr. Rycaut, in sanctioning the sale, had
exceeded his powers: an English Consul’s jurisdiction was limited
to persons of his own nation, and he had no right to settle an
affair between an Englishman and a foreigner.
These grave irregularities gave Pizzamano a chance, when he found
that the sale of his goods had yielded not only less than they were
worth, but even less than they had been pawned for, to denounce
the transaction and to claim compensation. Armed with an authentic
copy of the sale, which he had procured from the Cancellaria of the
English Consulate, he went up to Constantinople; and there this
bankrupt who was regarded as utterly helpless, by a singular piece
of luck, found powerful friends in Court. It was one of those odd
coincidences that seem to occur in order to show how much more
romantic life can be than the wildest fiction. The Venetian, before
setting up as a trader, had served as a purser on a French pirate
ship which Kara Mustafa, whilst Capitan Pasha, had captured. Now it
so happened that among the captives was a French cabin-boy who had
found favour in Kara Mustafa’s eyes, turned Turk, and become his
Hasnadar or Treasurer. For the sake of old times, the ex-cabin-boy
espoused the cause of the ex-purser heartily; several influential
Turks, creditors of Pizzamano’s, joined the crew in hopes of being
repaid out of the loot; and thus supported, the Venetian appealed
for redress to the Vizir as a Candiote and therefore now a subject
of the Grand Signor.
The Vizir immediately sent a chaoush to fetch Mr. Ashby up to
Constantinople, without notifying the Ambassador, who, according
to the Capitulations, should have been informed in order to
lend the defendant his assistance. This snub, however, did not
prevent Sir John from making Ashby’s quarrel his own. Ashby had
been exalted by the Smyrna factors into a popular hero: great
numbers of them accompanied him to the capital, “with swords and
pistolls”--quite a guard of honour; and he arrived bringing a
petition to the Ambassador signed by the Consul and forty members
of the Factory, that the expenses of the case should be defrayed
out of public funds. To this request Sir John demurred on purely
tactical grounds: “fearing that if I had declard’ my sense at
first, wee should starve our cause, I told Ashby that it was time
enough for my Answer when the thing was brought to a period.” With
this reservation, which shows that a man can be at once indiscreet
and cautious, Sir John made the defendant an object of his warmest
solicitude: the merits of the case seem to have had as little
weight with him as with the English colony in general.
At first everything went well. The Grand Vizir, when the litigants
appeared before him at the Divan, treated Ashby and his supporters
with the utmost indulgence, looking upon them, “as my Druggerman
told me, with the same smiling countenance as when he was
Chimacham,” and even declining to take notice of an aggravating
circumstance brought forward by the plaintiff--namely, that the
English factors who had accompanied Ashby to Constantinople
had tried on the way to rescue him by force of arms and had
actually come to blows with the Turks at Magnesia. Ignoring this
charge--which, in itself, might have supplied material for very
serious trouble--Kara Mustafa referred the case for trial to the
Stamboli Effendi, or Chief Justice of Constantinople, precisely as
we desired. On the eve of the trial an attempt was made to settle
the dispute out of court. Our friend Hussein Aga undertook the
part of arbiter and, after estimating the goods in question by the
advice of Turkish and Jewish merchants, he condemned Ashby to pay
the Venetian 1600 Lion dollars. But as Ashby would not abide by the
arbitration, the matter went before the Judge.
And now, to all the other illegalities mentioned, our countrymen
added an offence of a truly shocking nature. Ashby and his
abettors, from the Ambassador down, had by this time come to see
that a sale of pledged goods to which the owner’s consent could
not be proved was indefensible in Turkish law. They, therefore,
thought fit to deny the sale, and to affirm that the goods
were _in esse_--an attitude to which they were prompted by the
knowledge that the goods could easily be got back from those who
had bought them. In vain did Pizzamano produce his copy of the
sale, signed and sealed by the English Consul. Mr. Ashby, backed
by the Ambassador’s Dragoman and all the Englishmen present,
stoutly denied the authenticity of the document. Pizzamano then
produced two Turkish witnesses who had assisted at the sale. But
these witnesses, not being professional rogues, found themselves
unable to answer some questions on matters of detail put to them by
the Judge, and the bad impression which their inadequate replies
produced was deepened by the vehemence and apparent sincerity
with which the English persisted in affirming that the goods had
not been sold and would be restored on payment of the debt. The
Stamboli Effendi, confounded by this mendacious unanimity, departed
from the ordinary Turkish maxim of considering the word of two True
Believers worth more than that of a crowd of Infidels, and gave
sentence that both litigants should return to Smyrna, the one to
receive his money and the other his goods.
So far the English had been guilty only of a crime which, as long
as it remained undetected, could not hurt them. From this point
they began to commit blunders which were to cost them dearly.
Sir John congratulated Mr. Ashby on his victory, but at the same
time, knowing its seamy side, strongly advised him to come to an
adjustment with the Venetian, who offered to cry quits for 1000
dollars. Ashby, however, would not think of sacrificing an atom
of his ill-gotten advantage. And that was not all. Blinded by a
false sense of security and by cupidity, he did something that
proved fatal. The Grand Vizir’s complaisance and his reference of
the dispute to the Stamboli Effendi had been procured in the usual
way. At the very outset of this unfortunate business, Sir John had
got his friend Hussein Aga to buy off Kara Mustafa’s Hasnadar by a
bribe of 500 dollars. This sum had been handed to Dudley North and
Mr. Hyet, who deposited it by Hussein’s order in the Custom-House.
Soon after obtaining his verdict, Ashby met in the street a servant
of Hussein Aga’s who had charge of the 500 dollars, but did not
know what they were for. “My master,” he said, “has not yet asked
for that money. What am I to do with it?” The merchant’s avarice
got the better of his prudence: “Give it back to me,” he said, and
carried the dollars away. A day or two later Hussein Aga asked
his servant for the money, and on hearing what had happened,
sent to Ashby for it. Ashby refused to part with his dollars
again. Thereupon the Customer, already piqued by the rejection
of his arbitration, lost his temper completely. “He stormd’ like
a madman, and swore he would be revengd’ of the whole Nation for
this affront.” The Hasnadar was not less enraged at this breach of
faith. And the two, seconded by all their friends, revealed to the
Grand Vizir the whole plot, telling him how the English Ambassador
had, through his Dragoman, deceived the Stamboli Effendi about the
sale, and substantiating their damning statements with documentary
and other evidence. In great fury Kara Mustafa summoned once more
all parties concerned to the Divan, and there and then, without so
much as waiting to hear one word in Ashby’s defence, shouted to the
Chaoush-bashi: “Take that Giaour to prison, till he has satisfied
Pizzamano.”
Let us now leave Mr. Ashby in his dungeon, with an iron collar
round his neck and iron manacles on his hands, ruminating on the
fruits of fraud aggravated by folly, and see how this “accident”
affected his august protector.
The great Feast of the Bairam, at which it was customary for all
ambassadors to send presents to the Grand Vizir, drawing near,
Sir John’s Dragoman went to the Porte to ask when he should bring
his “Bairamlik,” and, incidentally, to see if he could not for
once get access to Kara Mustafa, who, “beyond all the example of
his predecessours had not yett sufferd’ any Publick Ministers
Druggerman to speak with him.” A fruitless endeavour! Kara Mustafa
is invisible, and his Kehayah coldly replies that there is no need
of a Bairamlik from you, since your Ambassador has not yet paid his
respects to the Vizir. The Dragoman protests that his Excellency
has constantly pressed for audience and is ready to come either
that night or next morning. “No,” answers the Kehayah; adding that
perhaps the Ambassador thought the Vizir would be content with the
ordinary first audience presents, but that was a delusion--“vests
would not doe the buisenesse.” From the surly Kehayah our Dragoman
goes to Dr. Mavrocordato: they talk the matter over, and it is
agreed between them that we should give fifty vests of a much
larger size than the usual; but when this agreement is propounded
to the Vizir, he rejects it scornfully.
Alarmed by these symptoms of ill-humour, Sir John addressed to Kara
Mustafa, through the Kehayah, a conciliatory message: he was very
sorry to have incurred the Grand Vizir’s displeasure, and begged to
know precisely what would restore him to his favour. He appealed
to the Vizir’s equity by pointing out that he had been obliged to
act as he had done by the exigencies of his position: “If I was in
the same conjuncture again I could doe no lesse: in regard that
if I had submitted to what the Ambassadour of another Christian
Monarch had refusd’, the King my master might justly have cutt off
my head.” He ended by expressing the hope that the Grand Vizir
would not enjoin upon him “any thing exorbitant or dishonourable,”
but that he would rather command his decapitation, “for that I had
rather submitt to the latter, then the former.”
The message was delivered to Kara Mustafa immediately after his
noon prayers, and “he seemd’ to be very much surprisd’” by it--as
well he might. After passing a whole hour in profound meditation,
he said to his Kehayah: “Methinkes the Ambassadour should not
thinke much to send me four thousand zecchins”--say, £2000. The
Kehayah added four hundred on his own account. As the result of
much haggling, the demand fell to 6000 dollars, or £1500, which
included the usual presents, amounting to 600 dollars.
This was Kara Mustafa’s prescription for Sir John’s diplomatic
fever. It plunged the patient into gloom. What could he do? He
could, no doubt, continue staying in his house, even in his bed.
But that would have deprived the English of their protector and
delivered them up to the tender mercies of every official robber
in the Empire. There was already the wretched Ashby groaning in
his chains. There was a claim on the Aleppo Factory for silk dues,
and an accusation of buying Turkish goods from Christian pirates
at Scanderoon. There was the charge, which Kara Mustafa had
brushed aside when in a good temper, against the English factors
of Smyrna of attempting to rescue Ashby by main force: now that
Kara Mustafa was in an ugly mood that charge might be brought
on the tapis again. Sir John considered these things, and also
another thing that concerned him more directly--the old pretensions
of the Pasha of Tunis, which, should a breach take place, were
not likely to remain dormant long. Even as it was, Sir John had
reasons to apprehend a revival of that nasty affair. The Pasha,
it is true, was still in his distant province on the borders of
Arabia, “where,” Sir John says, “I pray God detayn him”; but he
had at Constantinople a Vekil or Procurator in the person of--the
Grand Vizir’s Kehayah: an ominous connection. Lastly, Sir John
had to consider the feelings of the English merchants about him.
Their standard of values was the standard of the counting-house,
not of the Court. They thought it worse than futile to resent
affronts which we had not the means of resisting. Where the Turks
knew that big words were empty bluster, where business men could
be hurt without hope of redress--the only way to peace lay through
bakshish.[196] The factors with one voice urged Sir John to pay up.
There was not much time for hesitation. The Vizir had presented his
final demand in the form of an ultimatum: the Ambassador should
give a “categoricall and positive answer,” Yes or No, not later
than the day following. Sir John said “Yes.” He agreed to purchase
his audience for 6000 Lion dollars, ready money; and tried to
persuade himself that, all things considered, the price was not
excessive: he would save on the size of the vests--one yard here,
two there-so that “in time, though with length,” we should get our
money back! But nothing could minimise the cost in self-respect.
“I never in my life enterd’ upon a Resolution more unwillingly,
nor more against my Genious,” complains the poor diplomat, and we
may well believe him. No Englishman ever “sent to lie abroad for
the good of his country” had a keener sense of honour (we use the
term in its technical acceptation). As we have seen, not once or
even twice, the “point of honour” was to him what his creed is to
a monk, what his flag is to a soldier, what her virtue is to a
maiden--and now he had parted with it.
At the same time, we may ask (certain that Sir John will not mind
our impertinence), was that solution really as inevitable as it
was unpalatable? Was there no other way? On one hand, it is
possible to argue as our merchants argued, and to reinforce the
argument with such considerations as these: although the Law of
Nations which prescribes respect for ambassadors--a law older than
Homer--was not unknown to the Turks, no law is binding upon men
unless it is backed by fear. This requisite was completely absent
in the relations between the Western Powers and the Ottoman Empire.
There were no Turkish ambassadors resident in foreign capitals upon
whom to retaliate, and the Turks were at liberty to act as they
pleased without fear of reprisals. For the rest, their brutality
had been encouraged for generations by impunity. A whole series
of European envoys had been treated by them in the most revolting
manner, and their sovereigns had submitted with true Christian
meekness. On the other hand, there is on record a case which
suggests the existence of a more excellent way.
In the reign of James I., whilst the Elizabethan spirit still
lingered among us, the great English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe,
fired with indignation at the contempt shown by the Sultan’s
Ministers to the representatives of Christian Europe, took a
strong line. He began by writing to the Grand Vizir that he had
orders from his King either to obtain the respect due to English
ambassadors or else to break off relations. The Vizir promised
reform, but forgot to keep his promise. Roe did not waste any more
time, but threw the Capitulations at the Vizir’s feet, and invited
his colleagues to joint action. They all met and set out for the
Seraglio, determined to procure from the Grand Signor either
the Vizir’s head or leave to withdraw their subjects and their
goods out of the country. It so happened that a superior power
intervened. On the way the procession was met with the news that
the Janissaries had risen, that the Vizir had fled, and that orders
had been issued that he should be killed wherever found.[197]
Suppose Finch had taken a leaf out of Roe’s book? Was it not a
fact that the impotence of the European envoys was essentially the
result of their disunion? Finch himself confesses that “had Wee all
united, the case had bin easily carryd’ against the Visir.” But he
excuses himself to himself for making no attempt to unite them,
partly on the ground that the Turks had forestalled him by inviting
the Venetian and the Dutchman to audience the moment they got his
refusal: “so diligent were they in using this pressure, least Wee
Ministers should unite”; partly on the ground that his colleagues
neglected to profit by his “indisposition of body”: they all knew
it was an artifice, why then did they not copy it, or why did they
not put off the Vizir by saying that the priority of audience
belonged to the Ambassador of England? Thus by hastening to submit,
they left him no alternative. It was not his fault: it was the
fault of his colleagues, particularly of M. de Nointel: “The
French Ambassadour’s example and desertion of me, together with
the unadvisd’ deportment of the Factory (for neither of them alone
could have done it),” compelled him to that ignominious surrender.
Thus Sir John bought his peace. He bought it upon assurances that
he would be reinstated in the Grand Vizir’s good opinion, and
have his audience at once. But what with the celebrations of the
Bairam, the payment of the troops which began as soon as the Feasts
ended, and several other excuses (whether real or pretended, Sir
John could not say), the audience was deferred from day to day.
In the meantime Mr. Ashby continued to groan in his chains; which
grew, as such things are apt to do, heavier with every day that
passed. The Ambassador, having some grounds to believe that the
Vizir did not wish to see him till that disagreeable affair was
settled, exerted himself to this end, with the result that the
prisoner was first relieved of his collar and wristlets, then
had the 5000 dollars to which he had been condemned reduced by
one-fifth, and at last, after about twenty days’ incarceration,
was set at liberty. Temporarily cured of his avarice, Mr. Ashby,
besides paying Pizzamano 4000 dollars, also paid 500 to the
Hasnadar, and, we may suppose, resolved not to prevaricate again.
The last obstacle having been removed, our Ambassador found the
Porte open to him, and on the 12th of December (nearly eight months
since that memorable Sunday when Nointel’s mishap had thrown him
into a diplomatic distemper--a truly fatal illness) he had his
audience. It went off without a hitch.[198]
Kara Mustafa, at close quarters, appeared somewhat less terrible
than Sir John had pictured him at a distance; and, although he did
not honour the visitor with any vests, he accorded to him several
marks of (shall we say?) respect, which he had denied to the other
foreign Ministers. Instead of three hours, he kept him waiting only
a quarter of an hour; he permitted all the members of his suite to
enter the Audience Chamber; he deigned to drink coffee and sherbet
with him; and (greatest condescension of all!), while he had let no
ambassador talk for more than seven minutes, and then only about
news, he suffered Sir John to go on for over three-quarters of an
hour, and (“bating the first Ceremony of Congratulation,” and a few
words “of how things passd’ in England”) all about solid business.
Sir John took full advantage of this unexpected amiability. Very
adroitly he began with the Smyrna figs and currants: the King his
master was infinitely grateful for the favour conferred upon his
kitchen; but the benefit was mutual: the Grand Signor’s subjects
had already made 130 walled vineyards where there was nothing
but stones before, and, if the Vizir was pleased to encourage
the trade by enlarging the concession, “gold would grow instead
of pebbles”--a million of dollars a year which we now spent in
Christendom for fruit would then most probably come to Turkey. The
topic was eminently calculated to capture Kara Mustafa’s attention.
He asked with interest whether this concession was in the
Capitulations; and, on hearing that it was, he said that it would
be punctually observed together with the rest of our privileges.
Following up this propitious opening, Finch broached a number of
kindred subjects, begging, among other things, that in future no
Englishman might be dragged to the Divan by a chaoush for debt,
until after his creditors had applied to the Ambassador for
satisfaction. He implored the Grand Vizir to consider that the
calling of a merchant from his business upon any frivolous or false
claim often spelt ruin for the merchant. The Grand Vizir replied
that, so long as the English merchants acted with sincerity, they
should be protected; but if they acted unjustly and dishonourably,
they must answer for their bad actions like other men.
Impartial justice, however, was not quite what the Ambassador
wanted. He dwelt on the fact--a fact which, he said, must be well
known to “a great captain in warr and a great Minister of State
in peace,” such as Kara Mustafa was--that the Porte had never
encountered at sea any English ships nor on land any English troops
operating against it: a proof positive of the reality of the King’s
friendship for the Grand Signor. After all this, it must surely be
a subject of great joy to the enemies of the Porte, and a great
discouragement to its well-wishers, to see no distinction made
between friend and foe, but its best friends treated, if anything,
worse than “those that exercise acts of hostility against it.” To
this tender appeal, with its covert hit at the French, Kara Mustafa
made a suitable answer: “He very well knew our friendship and he
had a very great value for it.”
Towards the close of the interview Sir John expressed a hope that
he was now entirely in the Grand Vizir’s good graces and that he
might henceforth count on his favour and protection, declaring,
upon the word of an Ambassador, that, unless assured of it, he was
so unwilling to see the ancient friendship between England and
Turkey grow cold on his account, that he would immediately write
and ask the King his master to recall him and send some other
person who might be more acceptable to his Excellency. “There is
no occasion for any such thing,” replied the Vizir, looking very
kindly upon the Ambassador: He had both esteem and kindness for
him, and the Ambassador would find it so in all his business.
Then Sir John, besides the presents which he had delivered already,
presented to Kara Mustafa “an incomparable perspective glasse[199]
of 4 feet made by Campana, and a pockett one, also of Campana’s,
and one of ten feet made in England,” and took his leave with a bow
which the Grand Vizir was good enough to return.
Such, in substance, is Sir John’s own version of this historic
interview. His feelings after it may be described as a mixture
of relief and doubt, in which doubt predominated. “The
misunderstandings between the Visir and me have, like the breaking
of a Bone well sett, made our friendship the stronger,” he reported
to the Secretary of State; and immediately, as if fearing the
Nemesis which pursues boastfulness, he hastened to add: “But who
can promise himself any thing in these times out of a certain
prospect, or who can say that any thing is well done?”
Who, indeed! Turkey was no longer the Turkey to which Sir John
had come, in which he had dwelt for three uneventful years so
happily--the Turkey “of the two famous Visirs, Kuperli the father
and Achmett his sonne; whose Justice, Detestation of Avarice, and
Accesse renderd’ their Administration and all Buisenesse under it
easy.” Gone was that golden age, and all men who during that twenty
years’ interlude of righteousness had forgotten the normal rigour
of Turkish rule, protested that “the Violence of this Goverment,
as to Pride and Rapine is beyond all Memory and example.” Only
a man like Dudley North saw that Kara Mustafa’s régime was not a
departure from, but a return to normality. Finch, like the rest,
stood aghast at a “barefacd’” arbitrariness utterly new to his
experience: “I would,” he wrote, “all the Mutineers in England
against their too much happinesse were exild’ for two yeares onely
to be under this present Goverment!” and made no attempt to conceal
his apprehensions for the future; “I shall count it a wonder, as
well as a blessing,” he says, “if I scape thus.”
Prophetic words!
FOOTNOTES:
[188] This quotation and those that follow (until further notice)
are taken from Finch’s despatch to Coventry, May 26, S.V. 1677,
and the inclosed “Account of what Relates to Publick Ministers and
their affayrs”--an astonishing document of fourteen closely written
pages, _Coventry Papers_.
[189] Besides Finch’s “Account,” see his despatch of Nov. 29, S.V.
1677; Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, p. 335; Vandal’s _Nointel_, p. 230; _Life
of Dudley North_, p. 74. If we are to believe the version of the
incident transmitted by the Imperial Resident Kindsberg, Nointel’s
exit was still more dramatic: two chaoushes flung him down from
the Soffah, shouting to him, “_Haide, kalk giaour_” (Off with you,
infidel), Hammer, vol. xii. p. 8.
[190] Two copies of this Memorial, an Italian and an English one,
both dated April 28, 1677, accompany Finch’s despatch of May 26.
For the instructions to which he refers see Appendix I. Cl. 2.
[191] See copies of it, dated May 12-22, 1677, _ibid._
[192] See Rycaut’s _Present State_, p. 166; _Life of Dudley North_,
p. 114.
[193] Finch to Coventry, Nov. 29, S.V. 1677, _Coventry Papers_;
_Life of Dudley North_, p. 75; Vandal’s _Nointel_, pp. 231-2. This
last version, based on Nointel’s own despatches, suffers from
excess of discretion.
[194] Finch to Coventry, Nov. 29, S.V. 1677. This monumental
despatch (22 pages), which the writer himself describes as “rather
a History then a Letter,” is my main authority for what follows.
[195] Dudley North (_Life_, p. 77) says that the time for repayment
of the debt had passed and that Ashby did not proceed to the sale
until repeated applications to the Venetian had made him despair
of ever getting his money back. A similar assertion appears in a
thoroughly partisan “Narrative” presented by the Levant Company
to the King (_Register_, _S.P. Levant Company_, 145). But this is
flatly contradicted by Finch’s definite statement that the sale
was carried out “three moneths before the mony was due.” The only
palliation the Ambassador offers for an act which he condemns as
“unjustifiable” is that Ashby had obtained Pizzamano’s verbal
consent to the sale: a point which, in the absence of written
evidence, could not be proved. It need hardly be said that Sir John
had no motive to represent things as worse than they were, or that
he was not prejudiced in favour of the Venetian, whom he describes
as “a Rogue declard’”--“a Merchant that robbd’ all his Principles
(_sic_) of Venice, and the Captain that brought him thence, and is
by order of that State to be hangd’ if they can gett him.”
[196] On this point see _Life of Dudley North_, p. 76.
[197] See Roe to Calvert, Feb. 9-19, July 1, 1622, _Negotiations of
Sir Thomas Roe_ (London, 1740), pp. 18, 61-2.
[198] We have “a precise Account of it, and all the Circumstances
that attend it, without the least variation,” in Finch to Coventry,
Dec. 15-25, 1677, _Coventry Papers_.
[199] Telescope.