KARA MUSTAFA AND THE ALEPPO DOLLARS
Sir John Finch, on second thoughts, did not hold the Ashby
“accident” entirely responsible for the grievous _dénouement_ at
which we have assisted. That bit of ill-luck, he believed, had but
precipitated a crisis which was bound to come anyway--any spark
will set fire to a train already laid. If the Grand Vizir had not
met with a ready-made pretext for “satisfying his passion upon
him,” he would have manufactured one--perhaps even a worse one. For
such a belief Sir John had ample warrant. We know how M. de Nointel
had been made to purchase his peace. Sir John, who always measured
his own fortunes and misfortunes by those of his French colleague,
and with whom the wish generally was father to the thought, had
by degrees convinced himself that the price paid by the Marquis
was much higher than his own.[200] But, after all, Nointel had
provoked Kara Mustafa. The Bailo of Venice, though he had tried to
propitiate him by taking his seat below the Soffah without demur,
was immediately afterwards forced by threats of imprisonment in
the Seven Towers to pay 45,000 dollars in settlement of a claim
which his predecessor had actually settled four years before, under
Ahmed Kuprili, for 1500 dollars. The Resident of Holland had been
driven out of his house, and was glad to take 2500 dollars for what
had cost him 10,000. The Emperor’s Resident was made to disburse
daily large sums of money on every idle plea that arose out of the
chronic disturbances on the Hungarian frontier. The Ambassadors
of Ragusa trembled under an “avania” which menaced their Republic
with ruin; Kara Mustafa demanding no less than 1,600,000 dollars
as compensation for the Customs-duties which Ragusa had levied
on Turkish goods these forty years past, though in so doing the
Republic had only exercised a legal right. Sir John ends his list
of fellow-sufferers with a most sympathetic account of the plight
of the Genoese Resident. How he spoke of Signor Spinola in bygone
days, we have already seen. Now he refers to him as that “poor
gentleman”; and, in truth, the tribulations of this diplomat were
such as to touch a much harder heart than Sir John’s. Ever since
his arrival he had been begging for an audience; and recently,
on the very day before Kara Mustafa sent his ultimatum to Finch,
he had been haled to the Porte by an Aga and a Chaoush, like a
prisoner, and after being detained there all day without seeing
the Vizir, was given the option to sign a promissory note for 7500
dollars or pass the night in the Seven Towers. “And what was his
fault? They calld’ him Infidell, Dog, and Thief, because he durst
keep so long by him the Gran Signor’s presents the Republick had
sent. It being, they told him, his duty to have sent the presents,
though he himselfe was not worthy to see the Gran Signor.” Spinola
promised, but, on failing to pay up at the appointed time, the
Vizir, to punish him for his unpunctuality, raised the sum to
20,000 dollars and, for security, seized a Genoese ship then in
port. So prolific was Kara Mustafa in pretexts for extortion. His
subordinates were not less ingenious:
“They have introducd’ a new Custome of giving no Commands to any
Publick Minister without extravagant Demands: selling them as if
they were in a Markett at the highest of their value. The French
Ambassadour told me that finding himselfe dayly aggrievd’ with this
innovation, he went in person to the Rais Affendi to expostulate
the matter: he told the Ambassadour he askd’ no presents; but the
Ambassadour sending the day following the very same Druggerman
who had heard and interpreted the words, for some Commands, he
had urgent occasion of, the Rais Affendi plainly told him that,
if he brought no presents he should have no Commands. The Holland
Resident payd’ beforehand thrice as much as ever yet he gave for
a Command, and after a moneth was past urging the expedition of
those Commands, he was told that they knew nothing of the matter,
and denyd’ the having receivd’ any presents, so he was forcd’ to
present again and has not yet his Commands out. The Venetian Bailo
after the payment of his Avania, having gott a Nisanisheriffe
for his discharge, though the Visir sent his Command to the Rais
Affendi for it, he refusd’ to under-write it unlesse the Bailo
would give him 500 Dollars, though his Fees were never above 30,
or two vests, and he was so insolent that he bid the Venetian
Druggerman goe and tell the Visir that he would not sett his hand
to it under that summe: so the Bailo thought himselfe well usd’
when at last he gott him to take 300. Thus is the Turkish Proverb
verifyd’: Goverment like Fish beginns to stink from the head.”[201]
Let it not be supposed that the Turks themselves escaped Kara
Mustafa’s far-reaching shears. His appetite for money was both
keen and catholic. He collected it wheresoever he could find it,
making no invidious distinctions between True Believer and Infidel,
between native and alien. It was enough that a man should have
money to become at once an object of the Grand Vizir’s special
attention. Not without reason did the Rais Effendi ask the Ragusan
Ambassadors, when they pleaded for mercy, to consider “how many
rich Musulmen the Visir had stript to their shirts.” And again,
when some despoilt Beys heard the ambassadorial Dragomans murmur
at the Porte, they cried out: “You Giaours: how can you wonder
at being hardly dealt with, whenas we Musulmen, who for many
generations have spent our blood in service of the Empire, are thus
dealt withall?”
Kara Mustafa, of course, was not tyrannical for the mere pleasure
of being so; he had to think of his finances. No Grand Vizir was
ever burdened with heavier domestic obligations. He kept a harem
of more than fifteen hundred concubines with at least as many
slaves to serve them and half as many eunuchs to guard them. His
attendants, his horses, his dogs, his hawks were counted by the
thousand. How could he meet all these pressing claims upon him
without cash? Besides, all the cash Kara Mustafa collected did not
flow into his own coffers: he had to let considerable rivers of it
pass into the lap of the Grand Signor, who since Ahmed Kuprili’s
death had been growing more and more dissolute, and squeezed his
Vizir as hard as his Vizir squeezed others. Further, like most
great collectors of cash, Kara Mustafa had a conscience; and
conscience is an expensive luxury. It made Kara Mustafa devote no
small part of his plunder to works of piety, charity, and public
utility: mosques, schools, baths, fountains, bazaars.[202] Let
us add that Kara Mustafa was as ambitious as he was ravenous. He
cherished grandiose dreams of conquest. He saw in fancy the Ottoman
Empire spreading to the West as far as it had spread in the East:
swallowing up new kingdoms--fulfilling its Imperialist destiny.
Thus, the poor man could not possibly dispense with rapacity--it
was his one resource for humbling his enemies and the enemies of
his country; for extending the dominion of Islam; for procuring
for himself glory and power in this world and bliss in the next.
He needed money: he must have it from any hand, on any pretext,
by any means--except one. Sir John notes the exception: “hitherto
the Visir has showd’ no inclinations to shed blood.” It is well to
remember this virtue of Kara Mustafa’s; for it is his only one.
From this exposition of Kara Mustafa’s methods and motives it
is evident that the case of Mr. Ashby had only served him as an
excuse. For all that, the figure which we made in that case must
have contributed not a little to our disgrace. Indeed, a better
case could not well have been devised for extinguishing in the
Grand Vizir every spark of respect he might have had for the
English and their Ambassador. As we know from his own despatches,
Sir John laboured under no illusions as to the merits of Ashby’s
cause; yet he did not hesitate to defend in public--and by the most
disreputable means--what he condemned in private as unjustifiable.
In so doing, of course, he acted as any other ambassador would
have done. A diplomat everywhere is essentially an advocate whose
duty it is to make the worse case seem the better. And in Turkey,
perhaps more than elsewhere, it has always been the tradition of
European representatives to shield their nationals from punishment
at all costs; imagining that thus they saved their nation’s
“honour”--a whimsical conception not very closely related to
honesty. What was the use of Sir John telling the Vizir, as he did
at his audience, that he was “so great an enemy of dishonesty and
injustice that I should begg protection for my merchants no further
then they were honest and just”? The Vizir, in listening to him,
must have only wondered at the Giaour’s effrontery. And how could
he, after that shameful exhibition, ever believe an Englishman
again? This is not a mere inference of the present writer’s. The
Treasurer of the Levant Company, who participated in the whole
performance, had the candour, after it was over, to acknowledge,
without mincing words, that the part he and the rest had played was
“impudent,” “base,” and such as “must needs make an ill impression
on the Vizier against our Nation, not easily to be removed.”[203]
It was not long before the distrust thus sown in Kara Mustafa’s
mind bore fresh fruit.
To make this new Avania intelligible to the modern reader it is
necessary to say something first about the fiscal chaos that
reigned in seventeenth century Turkey.
The only money coined by the Grand Signor’s mint, and therefore the
only money properly speaking Turkish, was the _asper_--a very small
piece of _white_ (Greek _aspron_) metal, once upon a time silver
and worth over 2 pence, now so much debased that it was worth
about 3 farthings, and so badly made and so sadly clipped that it
commanded very little esteem even at that price. The coin most
generally current in the Empire was of foreign manufacture--Spanish
pieces of eight, Lion dollars of Holland, the Rix dollars of
Germany, the Quarts of Poland, Venetian and Hungarian sequins,
French scudes, and, lately, French five-sous pieces of silver
worth about 5 pence English and called by the Turks _temeens_,
by the Franks _Luigini_ or _Ottavi_. These polyonymous coins
had experienced many vicissitudes, and our tale is indissolubly
intertwined with the history of their rise and fall in the Ottoman
Empire.
First introduced about 1660 by a French mariner, they immediately
acquired a great vogue among the Turks. They were bright little
things, most attractive to the eye by their pretty stamp of
fleurs-de-lys, most agreeable to the touch, and altogether ideal
for small change. The mariner made a handsome profit out of his
adventure, bartering his five-sous pieces at the rate of 8 to the
dollar--getting, that is, about 5 shillings for 3s. 4d. Tempted by
his success, the merchants of France began to import _temeens_ in
enormous quantities, till the market was glutted, and the dealers
had to pass them at 10 to the dollar. To make up for the decrease
of profit, they increased the alloy; of course, that could not be
effected in the Royal Mint of France: it was effected by a French
lady who had the privilege of coining and who luckily bore in her
coat-of-arms three fleurs-de-lys. The fraud was not detected by the
Turks, and the _temeen_, debased, once more became so profitable
a commodity that others stepped in to compete with the French in
fraud: the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Republic of Genoa, all
the petty Italian States that could by hook or by crook put in
fleurs-de-lys; and those who were not fortunate enough to boast
such flowers put in something else that looked more or less like
them--for example, spread eagles so cunningly contrived as to need
an expert in heraldic natural history to tell the difference.
Never was the subtle East more grossly outwitted by the West;
and the swindlers had the impudence to add ribaldry to injury by
adorning their bastard coin with such legends as “_Voluit hanc
Asia mercem_--That’s the stuff Asia wants,” or “_De procul pretium
ejus_--Don’t look at it too closely.” Dutch, German, and English
speculators joined in the nefarious traffic, so that by 1668 it
was estimated that there was forty million dollars’ worth of this
debased currency in Turkey, and more was coming--whole shiploads of
it. Naturally, the more _temeens_ flowed in, the lower they sank in
value (in 1668 they passed at Smyrna for 20 or 24 to the dollar);
and the lower they sank in value, the higher rose the proportion of
alloy. By gradual transmutations the original silver of the coin
became almost pure copper. Rascals had the time of their lives. All
men who failed as merchants became bankers, flooding the country
with counterfeit silver and draining it of all the gold and genuine
silver that fell into their hands.
Hitherto the Porte, engrossed by the Cretan War, had made no effort
to check the evil. But it was thought that, the moment peace was
signed, the first thing taken in hand would be the regulation of
the currency. And if the Sultan’s Ministers were not disposed to
move of their own accord, there were those whose interest it was
to instigate them. English merchants considered that the vast
importation of false money must at last redound to their serious
prejudice: the French and Italian importers, making 50 per cent
profit on the _temeens_, were able to outbid us in the Turkish
market. Therefore, in 1668, the Levant Company forbade under severe
penalties its Factors to receive this money, and, at its instance,
the King ordered Sir Daniel Harvey to call the attention of the
Grand Signor to “the mischiefs and ill consequences of that abuse.”
The Ambassador was so successful as to get the Turkish Government
to forbid the circulation of the _temeens_ by Proclamation: “I
have,” he reported, “spoyld I hope the Trade of the French and
Italians, with thare false mony, every body refusing to take them.”
But this sudden and absolute denunciation of the most common coin
in the country spelt ruin for millions of people, especially of
the poorer classes, and the distress was heightened when the
tax-gatherers refused to accept the _temeen_ as legal tender,
but demanded Lion dollars or Seville and Mexico pieces of eight,
coins which had by now become almost unobtainable. The upshot was
drubbings and imprisonments on one side, riots on the other: at
Brusa and Angora the outraged taxpayers rose in rebellion, and
some of the Grand Signor’s officers fell victims to their wrath.
However, from that hour the _temeen_ was irrevocably doomed; and
fraudulence had to seek a new field in the false dollar, which
was now pushed into the market with as much vigour and as little
scruple as its predecessor. Harvey lost no time in obtaining
samples and in lecturing the Grand Vizir on the subject, with the
result that, in 1671, a severe inquiry was instituted and several
officials who connived at the importation of these products of
Western Art smarted for it.[204]
Nevertheless, the traffic continued to flourish, Lion dollars being
manufactured even at Smyrna, as we have seen from Mr. Rycaut’s
dispute with the French Consul at the end of 1674;[205] and the
Levant Company, fearing lest, in spite of its prohibitions, some
Englishmen should again engage in it, passed an order that all
specie arriving in Turkey on English bottoms should be examined by
the Ambassador and Consuls, and none, save such as was of perfect
alloy, should be permitted to enter the country. Further, to
prove their good faith, the directors of the Company ordered that
the examination should be carried out in the presence of Turkish
officials. From this well-intentioned measure were to spring some
very serious ills. The Turkish officials displayed the liveliest
reluctance to meddle in the matter. They frankly regarded the whole
business as a blind designed to cover the importation of false
money, and were afraid of laying themselves open to the charge
of connivance. In fact, the more earnestly the English invited
the Turks to witness their probity, the worse grew the Turks’
opinion of the English. Their attitude, not unreasonable in men
who had had such experience of Western probity, might have warned
our Ambassador that he was skating on exceedingly thin ice. But
he did not heed the warning. It was the Company’s order, and Sir
John, who had in a superlative degree the fault that so often
belongs to conscientious public servants--an excess of zeal over
discretion--was anxious not only to carry out his instruction,
but even to better it. Not content with inviting the Customer, he
invited the Kaimakam himself to the inspection. Nor did anything
occur to demonstrate the injudiciousness of these proceedings until
the Ashby case.
At that inauspicious moment the Levant Company’s “General” ships
arrived at Aleppo carrying, over and above their freight of cloth
and other English manufactures, 200,000 new Lion dollars. The
unusual quantity of the coin was in itself calculated to engender
doubts about its quality: never before had so vast a sum of new
money been imported in a lump--30, 40, or 50 thousand dollars had
hitherto been the maximum. And as if the quantity alone was not
enough, “our back friends” (Sir John’s expression), the Dutch
and the French, did all they could to confirm the Turks in their
scepticism by positively asserting that our dollars were bad.
However, the Pasha of Aleppo would have let the consignment pass:
2000 or 2500 dollars was all that he needed to be fully persuaded
of our probity. But as our Consul, having already been reprimanded
by the Company for indulging the Turks with bakshish, dared not
gratify him unless he was prepared to do so out of his own pocket,
the Pasha, in revenge, notified the Grand Vizir that the English
had imported so many thousands of false dollars and asked for
instructions.
Kara Mustafa caught fire at the news, and all the foreign Ministers
at Constantinople hastened to blow the coals: the Dutch were angry
with us, because the coin was coin of Holland and by dealing in it
we, as it were, took the bread out of their mouths; the French,
because we had taken away from them all their Turkey trade, and
more particularly because our Aleppo Factory had just erected a
Company to trade directly with Marseilles in those very commodities
which the French had until now regarded as their exclusive
monopoly. The Venetians were dissatisfied because the influx of
silver dollars in such quantities hindered the advantageous vent of
their gold sequins. And all of them owed us a grudge for exposing
their fiscal frauds. Thus stimulated, Kara Mustafa ordered the
consignment to be sequestered, and two dollars out of each bag to
be sent to him for trial.
The English at Constantinople heard of these proceedings by
accident a few days before Sir John’s audience of reconciliation;
and the Ambassador seized that opportunity to discuss the matter
with the Grand Vizir, who told him plainly what he had done,
stating that, if the money proved good, it would be restored to the
owners, “for God forbid that any man should loose an Asper”; but,
if it proved bad; it should all be confiscated. Sir John, after
assuring him that it was perfectly good, pleaded that, in case some
small part of it, “either by the mistake of good men or malice
of ill men,” turned out bad, the error or knavery should not be
visited upon the innocent; let only that part of it be confiscated.
For the rest, he urged, all the English factors were under an oath
to receive no imported money till it was inspected by the Turkish
authorities, and if the Inspectors approved it not, they were
obliged to send it away again; so, as there was no clandestine
importation, there could be no possibility of fraud. Lastly, he
added, if difficulties were put in the way of good money, we who
now imported more than any other nation should be forced to give
up importing any at all. The Vizir, in answer to this plea, merely
said that, when the money came, he would communicate further with
the Ambassador.
Sir John, _en attendant_, could do nothing more than pray, “God
give me a just cause, and a just Judge!”
He was not kept long in suspense. On December 28th--a fortnight
after his audience--the Aga despatched to Aleppo returned bringing
with him 1000 dollars as a sample, and within two hours of his
arrival the Ambassador was invited to assist at the trial in the
courtyard before the Divan. He hurried to the scene, attended by
his Dragomans, the Treasurer of the Levant Company, and some of the
English merchants. There he found everything ready, and all the
principal Officers of State waiting: the Tefterdar, the Kehayah,
the Chaoush-bashi, the Chief Customer, the Master of the Mint,
the Dragoman of the Porte, and several others; the Grand Vizir
himself watched the performance from a window--not openly, but just
“peeping out.”
Decorum was the order of the day. As soon as the Ambassador
appeared, a seat was brought for him, and he sat down upon it for
a moment to assert his right; but, seeing that all those Ministers
of State stood, he rose too and sat no more--a courtesy which, as
he was afterwards informed, “was kindly taken by them.” Meanwhile,
the sample, in eight bags of 125 dollars each, was shown to him,
sealed up as it had left Aleppo with the Consul’s and Cadi’s seals;
and the test commenced. Two hundred and fifty dollars were taken
out. Young Dollars, fresh from your Maker’s hands, what destiny
awaits you? Are you pure and innocent, or born in sin? All eyes are
fixed upon them, spell-bound with hope and fear. They are melted
down--refined--the silver that is in them is carefully weighed....
But we must not go into details. On the whole, the result seems
satisfactory, and our friends go away in high spirits.
The Dutch raise a mighty and malicious clamour: your dollars are
7 per cent below the standard--we know all about them. Were they
not coined at Kampen? Here is a “Placart” sent to our Resident by
the States, wherein you may read, and the Turks may read, in a
translation we have taken good care to make for their edification,
that “certain false Lyon Dollars coynd’ at Campen this year were
prohibited, and that orders was given to enquire after the Persons
that coynd’ that false mony, whose punishment was to be boyld’ in
oyl.” Let the Grand Vizir release them, if he pleases, no Dutchman
will take any of them. A studied revenge, Sir John believed, for a
like boycott by the English Factory of Smyrna, which had banished
all the Dutch new dollars out of the country. Thus cry out the
Hollanders, and others, whom Sir John could name if High Diplomacy
did not forbid. Notwithstanding these ill-offices of “our back
friends,” the English persisted in their optimism that night; then
came the awakening.
Next morning Hussein Aga sent for Sir John’s Dragoman and the
Levant Company’s Treasurer, to inform them by order that the Grand
Vizir considered their dollars bad and had determined to fetch the
whole lot from Aleppo, melt it down, and return them the silver....
A very sore stroke--most stunning in its unexpectedness. What
they said to the Customer we are not informed. But the Customer,
after putting them in a fright and enjoying their emotions, hinted
to them that the catastrophe might be averted--the Vizir was not
implacable: he could be mollified.
Kara Mustafa, without a doubt, felt much disappointed by the result
of the trial. He had made sure that the money was defective, and
had counted on gobbling up the lot: otherwise he would hardly have
given himself the trouble of a public test. Hence his need of
consolation. The emollient suggested was 12,500 dollars for the
Vizir, and 2500 for his Kehayah: in all, 15,000 dollars. Could we
refuse such a trifle to a lenient Judge in want of cash?
Sir John called a meeting of the Factory, at which it was
unanimously decided to give the Vizir his due without delay: else
the merchants calculated that the loss would be nearly thrice
as much--to say nothing of the expense of getting the molten
silver out of Kara Mustafa’s grasp. Accordingly the Ambassador
sent to Hussein Aga word that “the least mischiefe being the
most eligible, Wee were resolvd’ to comply with the Visir. Upon
which promise, what doe you imagine they did?” They instituted a
second trial, conducted before the same high dignitaries, with the
same publicity, and palpably with a view to finding a favourable
verdict: so that the release of the money might appear as the
effect of justice, not of bribery. Ten ancient Lion dollars--some
of them aged 106 years--were produced as a pattern, and, after
being melted down, came out with a proportion of pure silver equal
to or even smaller than ours; which was not to be wondered at,
considering the attrition they had undergone in the course of their
long career. This done, the Judges solemnly reported to the Grand
Vizir that the new money was quite as good as, if not indeed better
than, the old!
One might have thought that a termination of their trials which
fell so much short of the hopes of their ill-wishers, would have
been welcomed by our countrymen with thankfulness. But, glad
as they were to have got off so cheaply, they imagined, in the
simplicity and cupidity of their souls, that they might get off
more cheaply still--thereby very nearly spoiling the comedy. Mr.
North and Sir John’s Dragoman went to Hussein Aga and pleaded for
a remission, or at least an abatement, of the fine they had agreed
to pay. “What fault was committed,” they asked, “since our Dollars
had proved as good as the old ones?” Not without humour, the
Customer replied, “As to fault, it was no small one in these times
to bring in 200,000 Dollars at a clap.” “But,” they insisted, “they
have been found as good as the old ones.” This was too much even
for the friendly Hussein. He retorted angrily that they owed that
finding to the bakshish they had promised. However, if they were
not satisfied, he would cancel the bargain and leave them to make
a new one with the Grand Vizir as well as they could.
The rebuke brought our friends to their senses. Without another
word they parted with their 15,000 dollars, besides 1000 which
the Turks wanted for the Aga who had fetched the sample; and,
in return, they got back what remained unmelted of the sample,
together with the melted silver. Here ended the comedy--no, not
quite. The Pasha of Aleppo, before letting the treasure go out
of his grip, squeezed the merchants to the tune of 4000 dollars,
“which,” Mr. North wistfully observes, “was more than at first
would have done the business with him.”[206] It was not the first,
or the last, time our Turkey Merchants went near to losing the ship
for the sake of a ha’p’orth of tar.
Sir John’s reflections upon this fresh experience of Kara Mustafa’s
cash-collecting mania are interesting. That the Grand Vizir was
right in subjecting every importation of silver and gold to severe
scrutiny he would not deny: nor could we complain of measures
which we ourselves had instigated. “But,” with characteristic
imperception of the exquisite irony of the situation, he thought
“this is no reason why he should begin with us who have allway’s
bin innocent.” Worse still, he mulcted us, the authors of the
measure! “Here you see the justice of this present Goverment. It
is impossible if the Visir once getts ready mony into his power
that he can make any pretence upon whatsoever to lett it goe free
without his share of it. Neither is there any officer about him,
that has not the same tincture, but of a deeper dye.”
In the circumstances, the poor Ambassador sees ahead of him
nothing but “disasters from dormant pretensions awakend or from
unforeseen miscarriages.” He sees himself “being further preyd’
upon by Ravenous and Insatiable appetites upon dormant or future
pretences.” In the first category he places “the reviving of
the old Pretensions of the Bassà of Tunis.” In the second,
“the probability of a warr with Argiers.” Admiral Narbrough,
shortly after his return from Tripoli, was ordered back to the
Mediterranean to chastise the Algerine pirates: “if wee should
chance to batter any thing upon Terra firma, God knows what use
this Visir would make of it.” The prospect fills Sir John with a
dismay that has something of terror in it: “Capitulations being now
declard’ to be but contemptible things and like a peice of wett
parchment that may be stretchd’ any way, renders this place to me
very wearysome and tedious, for it does me a great deal of hurt,
both in body and mind, to see your estates rent and torne from
you, and no help to be avaylable, neither prudence nor language
having any place, where all accesse to the Visir is denyd’ not
onely to the Druggermen but to the Ambassadours themselves.” Thus
he wrote to the Levant Company, ending with a pious “God give you
and me patience for from Him alone must come deliverance.” In his
communications to the Secretary of State he was even more piteously
emphatic: “It makes my condition of life here very uneasy to me who
have the care upon me of the whole estate of His Majesty’s subjects
in the Levant.” And again, striking a more poignant note: “God
preserve us from unreasonable and inflexible men,” he cries. “I
beseech Almighty God to deliver me from unreasonable and wilfull
men; in the maintenance of His Majesty’s honour and defence of the
estates and Interest of His subjects.”
It is evident from these utterances that, by the end of 1677, Sir
John Finch felt the burden too heavy for his shoulders. But his
contract with the Company had yet some time to run, and besides
he did not wish to return home before his friends had found him
some other employment. His mentor Baines, to whom as usual Finch
delegated the task of string-pulling, had already discussed the
subject in a letter to Lord Conway, in the course of which he said:
“If your Brother leaves this charge without being in possession
of a fayr and convenient post in England, I shall think that He
hath not a friend there, or at least very few, and those of no
influence.”[207] Pending the fruition of these exertions on his
behalf, Sir John could do nothing but set his teeth and stick to
his saddle like a fearful rider.
FOOTNOTES:
[200] It is amusing to watch the process as mirrored in his
reports. On Nov. 29 Finch tells Coventry that his audience cost
Nointel “near the same with me,” which was not true. On Dec. 15 he
emends this statement: “I now judge His Expense to have bin much
higher; for one Persian carpett alone is valud’ to me by a Jew that
serves the Visir, at three thousand five hundred Dollars. This,”
he adds, “I mention, not to advantage my Own Condition, but to
compassionate His.” Very likely!
[201] Finch to Coventry, Nov. 29, S.V., 1677.
[202] Hammer, vol. xii. p. 136.
[203] _Life of Dudley North_, p. 78.
[204] See Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, pp. 258-60; _Life of Dudley North_,
pp. 79-80; and the following State Papers: Intelligence for Lord
Arlington, Constantinople, Feb. 22, 1667-68; Unsigned Letter dated
Smyrna, June 1, 1668; The King’s Instructions to Harvey, Aug. 3,
1668; Inclosure in Winchilsea’s despatch of April 4-14, 1669;
Harvey’s despatches March 10, 15, 1668 [-69]; Jan. 31, 1670 [-71];
April 30, 1671. _S.P. Turkey_, 19.
[205] See above, p. 76. Cp. Instructions to Finch, Appendix I. Cl.
7.
[206] _Life of Sir Dudley North_, pp. 81-4; Finch to Coventry, Dec.
15-25, 1677; Jan. 19-29, 1678; the Same to the Levant Company, Jan.
19-29, 1678, _Coventry Papers_; _Register, S.P. Levant Company_,
145. Wherever there is any slight discrepancy between North’s and
Finch’s accounts of this Avania, I have, for reasons which seem
adequate to me, followed the latter.
[207] Baines to Conway, June 1-11, 1677, _S.P. Turkey_, 19.