CHAPTER VIII DIPLOMACY—HIGH AND OTHERWISE

Our Ambassador’s first interview with the Kehayah had for its primary object a demand of the greatest delicacy, though no way connected with English interests in the Levant: a sort of “side-show” springing out of Charles II.’s secret diplomacy and directed from the inmost recesses of the Cabal. Whether Finch knew the dark inwardness of the policy he served can only be matter of conjecture: his despatches are too guarded.[106] But certain it is that he threw himself unflinchingly into measures which he knew to be agreeable to his master and his patron, Lord Arlington.

The custody of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem had for ages supplied an apple of discord between Greek and Latin monks, who fought for the tomb of the Prince of Peace with more rancour than monarchs ever displayed in their struggles for temporal gains. It was not the ownership of the holy places, which belonged to the Grand Signor; it was not even the exclusive occupation of them that the unholy contest raged about. The whole feud was for certain honorific privileges or tokens of pre-eminence, such as the right to decorate a shrine, to light the lamps, or to keep the keys of a church. For these trifles both sects were prepared to spend thousands in corrupting the pashas of the Divan with whom the decision lay, and, besides, the Latin friars in Palestine, though being Spaniards, they had no ambassador of their own to assist them, enjoyed the diplomatic support of France, of Germany, of Venice, and of Poland. The Greeks would fain rely on their wits and their dollars. So equipped, each sect had alternately turned the other out. When M. de Nointel came to Turkey in 1670, he found the dispute in progress: it was one of the aims of his mission to have it settled in favour of the Latins, and on renewing the French Capitulations, in the summer of 1673, he had, as he imagined, carried his point.

The Greeks, however, had at that time a powerful champion in the First Dragoman of the Porte, Panayoti Nicusi, commonly called by the diminutive Panayotaki—an exceedingly clever and accomplished Greek, who easily persuaded the Vizir of the impolicy of taking the custody of the Holy Sepulchre from subjects of the Grand Signor and giving it to the protégés of foreign Powers—Powers which once owned the Holy Land and hoped to own it again: religious penetration being but the first step to ultimate conquest. A Hattisherif was, accordingly, handed to Panayoti, confirming the Greek claim. But, as Germany and the other European Powers whom Panayoti, before entering the service of the Porte, had served in the capacity of interpreter, were patrons of the Latins, and Panayoti did not wish to appear as his former employers’ opponent, the grant remained dormant until after his death, which took place in October 1673. Once the Dragoman safe in his grave, his countrymen produced the document and asserted their rights. The feud had reached its climax at Easter 1674, when M. de Nointel was on the spot.

Greek and Latin friars were preparing to adorn their respective portions of the marble shrine that covered the Tomb, when, stimulated by the presence of the French Ambassador, they fell out about the use of a ladder. The quarrel soon grew into a free fight which ended in the murder of one or two—some said two or three—Greek Caloyers. Result, in the French Ambassador’s own words, “un enfer déchaîné”—hell let loose. The whole of the Greek community, clergy and laity, men, women, and children, rushed to the Cadi clamouring for help against the Latin assassins; the Latins stoutly denied the deed, affirming that the Caloyer or Caloyers had died of old age. M. de Nointel, in a paroxysm of diplomatico-religious frenzy, wrote to his King, to the Pope, to the Queen of Spain, to all the Catholic princes and potentates in Europe, denouncing the Greeks as usurpers, calling for vengeance, begging for money—much money wherewith to purchase the favour of the pashas and foil the intrigues of the schismatics.

All this, however, had failed to undo the dead Panayoti’s work. Ahmed Kuprili never was the man to be moved by any one, least of all by the representative of a nation which, while calling itself the ally of Turkey, openly aided Turkey’s enemies: the Vizir had met thousands of Frenchmen fighting against him both in Hungary and in Crete. Moreover, as Sir John remarks, the murder of the Greek or Greeks had “highly displeasd’ the Gran Visir.” The Spanish Cordeliers of Jerusalem, reduced to their own devices, sent to Adrianople Padre Canizares, their Commissary at Constantinople, armed with letters from the Bailo of Venice and good store of gold of his own, to see what they could do at the Porte. The Greeks, on their part, sent to Adrianople the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheos, armed with the Sultan’s Hattisherif and good store of gold of his own, to see that the Spaniards did nothing at the Porte. Thus things stood on the eve of Sir John Finch’s appearance on the scene: Greek and Latin Christians wrangling for the possession of Christ’s grave before a Moslem tribunal.[107]

Our Ambassador had followed the feud from Pera with profound attention. England, looking upon the Greeks as natural allies against the common enemy—Popery—had, since the time of Elizabeth, consistently supported them in all their quarrels with the Latins. That Queen’s representative, Edward Barton, lived on terms of affectionate intimacy with the Patriarch Meletios. His successors, Henry Lello and Sir Thomas Glover, likewise maintained the closest friendship with the successors of Meletios. After enduring unabated throughout the reign of James I., this Anglo-Greek alliance had attained its height in the time of Charles I., during the Patriarchate of the renowned and unfortunate Cyril Lucaris, when the Catholic intrigues against the Greek Church reached their depth. Sir Thomas Roe and Sir Peter Wych, all the years they were at Constantinople, strove to save that prelate from the infamous plots of the Jesuits and their patron the French Ambassador, who, however, succeeded at length in compassing his strangulation at the hands of the Turks.[108] The first departure from this policy appears, strangely enough, to have occurred during the Commonwealth. When Lord Winchilsea arrived at Constantinople, in 1661, the Latin President of the Holy Sepulchre appealed to him for his favour on the ground that his antecessor, Sir Thomas Bendyshe, was a great defender of the Catholics in Turkey against the Greeks[109]—at a time when the Catholics in England were treated as almost outside the Christian pale and all heretics scattered over the Catholic world regarded Cromwell as their protector! Such a paradox might give food for interesting speculation indeed.[110] What concerns us here is Winchilsea’s response to the appeal: it forms a tolerably good example of the edifying ways of diplomacy.

Among the King’s Instructions to Winchilsea there is a clause bidding him “show all kindness and humanity to those of the Greek Church,” and counteract, by all the means in his power, the machinations of her antagonists, “especially such Jesuits and Friars as under religious pretences compass other ends.”[111] This looks as if at the beginning of his reign Charles II. meant to revert to the ancient tradition. Very soon, however, his attitude changed. As everybody now knows, though at the time the thing was a secret known to very few, Charles, already a crypto-Catholic, promised himself to establish papacy in England—to re-unite his kingdom to the Church of Rome. After the displacement of Secretary Nicholas (who, like Clarendon, always opposed the King’s favour for the Catholics) by Arlington, in 1662, the Romanist tendencies of the English Court became more pronounced, culminating in the Treaty of Dover which, among other things, stipulated the subversion of Protestantism in England. It was natural, therefore, for a king who entertained such projects at home to foment similar designs abroad; that his representatives at Constantinople should promote in the East the cause which their master promoted in the West.

What verbal orders Winchilsea may have had it is impossible to say; but it can be shown that, even while pretending to exert himself on behalf of the Greek Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, he earned the gratitude of their Latin rivals. After the supersession of Nicholas, he dropped all pretence, obtained His Majesty’s authority to disregard the pro-Greek clause, and thenceforward made the protection of the Roman Catholics an integral part of his programme.[112] His successor, Harvey, went out to Turkey with Instructions from which the awkward clause was significantly omitted,[113] and this negative evidence is supplemented by that Ambassador’s confidential relations with the Marquis de Nointel who had on his eager mind the “re-union” of the Greek and Roman Churches under the aegis of Louis. The Rev. John Covel, who assisted at many after-dinner discussions between the two diplomats about the doctrine of Transubstantiation and kindred topics, makes it quite clear that in Harvey the Catholic cause had found, at least, a benevolent neutral.[114] In the more zealous and less discreet Finch it was to find an active ally.

From his arrival in Turkey Sir John had shown his bias. The Greek Patriarch of Constantinople who had been deposed in 1674 would, in pursuance of the old tradition, have fled to the English Embassy. But Sir John refused him asylum.[115] In the quarrel over the Holy Sepulchre, without hesitation or examination, he adopted the Latin view and offered Padre Canizares his assistance—an offer which the monk declined, to the Ambassador’s intense annoyance: “He thankes me, but desird’ not so much as a letter from me. I keep this in Petto.” It was not long before the Providence that watches over aggrieved diplomats supplied Finch with a chance of unburdening his “petto.” The Commissary of the Cordeliers, by means either of the Bailo’s letter or of his own gold, had contrived to obtain from the Porte a suspension of the sentence which assigned the custody of the Holy Sepulchre to the Greeks, and a revision of the case; but in this new hearing the Vizir upheld the Greek side, acting, as the Latin Fathers said, rather the part of an advocate for the Greeks than of a judge. The upshot was that the former sentence was confirmed; and, though no order for its execution had yet been issued, the Cordeliers were in such a fright that Padre Canizares sent an express to Jerusalem requiring them to remove out of the holy places all the costly plate which had been presented by several Christian princes, so that, if the worst came to the worst, their rivals might find the prize denuded. At the same time, two of them came to Finch with an account of their parlous state. This was Sir John’s opportunity: “I told them that I was sorry as a Christian, that they had lost their just Possessions, But as a Publick Minister I was not the least concernd’ in it. P. Canizares having, though I offerd’ him my Assistance at a time when He found himselfe in so great danger, wholely declind’ all application to me, as if the King of Englands Ambassadour weighd’ nothing at this Court: and thus much occasionally I causd’ to be signifyd’ to the Bailo of Venice; and upon occasion shall doe the like to the French Ambassadour.”[116]

The French Ambassador had already written to Finch from Rama[117] on behalf of the Jerusalem Friars, and on his return to Constantinople in February 1675, after adjusting his differences with Sir John, he renewed his efforts to engage the Englishman’s co-operation. With this object in view he paid Finch a visit a little before the latter set out for Adrianople, and urged him to befriend the Latin Fathers near the Grand Vizir and Grand Signor, vehemently complaining of the Greeks, whom he described as “a company of Traditori, treacherous false wretches.”[118] The Venetian Bailo also approached our Ambassador on the same subject, and our Ambassador was not a little flattered to find himself, all of a sudden, the arbiter of Christendom.

It was, then, as a champion of Papacy that Sir John came to Adrianople: an odd rôle for one who had taken such pains to introduce himself to the Turks as the envoy from a “Defender of the Christian Faith against all those that worship Idolls and Images.” Whether the incongruity struck the Turks, we do not know. It certainly did not strike Sir John. The Jerusalem Fathers hastened to wait upon him, and “having excusd’ themselves and askd’ Pardon,” they “beseechd’ the King of Englands Protection,” declaring that they were prepared to spend for the purpose a sum of 15,000 dollars. Sir John willingly acceded to their request and promised to set about it straightway. What form was the protection to take? Sir John tells us that the money placed at his disposal was to be used “for the obtaining a Hattesheriffe for the clear possession of the Rights that were in dispute.” Dudley North asserts that the Fathers proposed and the Ambassador agreed to get an Article in their favour inserted into our Capitulations, adding that they showed Sir John the Article they desired ready-made both in Italian and in Turkish; and North’s assertion is inherently very probable. Lord Winchilsea in a letter to the Latin Procurator of the Holy Land had long ago stated that he found himself much hindered in his efforts to act as a patron of the Jerusalem Fathers by the fact that their protection was not mentioned in the English Capitulations.[119] However that may be, Sir John immediately procured a private interview with the Kehayah, and asked him “whether there was any hopes left for the Latin Fathers.” He was told that the Grand Vizir had sent to Jerusalem to inquire into the case, and “upon the sentence that was given no execution would be issued forth till the messenger was returnd’.” Thereupon the Ambassador prayed “that the execution might not be given out, untill I was heard what I had to say,”—intimating that he was able to bring forward 15,000 arguments. The Kehayah, in the kindest possible manner, agreed that a case so well supported was entitled to respectful consideration; and the Ambassador went away persuaded that the difficulties of the question had been greatly exaggerated: his only fear was lest some other diplomat should steal a march upon him.[120]

Thus blithely did Sir John thrust his hand into that hornets’ nest.

As was to be expected, the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem very soon got wind of this step. He had already made the English Ambassador’s acquaintance at Constantinople through the Rev. John, who, being intimate with both sides, knew of the Latin design to turn the Greeks out of the holy places even before Sir John Finch’s arrival in Turkey, and thought it in his heart an unjust design: they should be kept in, for they were natives and in possession. To the sympathetic Chaplain, therefore, Dositheos now had recourse and through him obtained an audience of our Ambassador.[121]

Simmering with excitement, his Holiness reminded his Excellency of the protection the Greeks had always had from the English nation, and desired that his Excellency should continue it. Finch replied in most courteous terms that his wish was to adjust the controversy between them and the Latins: they should abide by what was right and reasonable; and he argued at great length in favour of the Latins. The Patriarch went away highly dissatisfied.

A few days later, he wrote that he was not well enough to wait on his Excellency in person again, but asked that Mr. Covel might be sent to him, as he had to say some things which could not be said in a letter. When Covel went, Dositheos told him plainly that he knew well the Ambassador had taken up the Latins’ part for a sum of money, and that he meant to write to the King of England and to the Archbishop of Canterbury about it.

Whether these threats would have had any effect upon Finch may be doubted. But, as luck would have it, at this juncture letters reached him from home, relating that the Catholic cause was in a bad way. The Parliament which met on April 13th, 1675, had drawn up a new Bill against Popery. In the circumstances, his Excellency thought it expedient to modify his enthusiasm for the Cordeliers, and began to declare that he would not put their Article into the Capitulations, but would endeavour to procure a Hattisherif on their behalf. At this change of tone the Friars were much troubled, and pressed him to fulfil his original promise, offering more money; but they had to be content with what Sir John now promised them.[122] And even for that they would have to wait.

Sir John was meditating another descent upon the Kehayah, when the latter sent for his Dragomans and told them that the Grand Signor desired an English ship to convey to Tunis an Aga on important business: the old story of requisitioning over again!

The situation was one of those that Sir John loved to deal with and to describe in detail: they called for precisely the sort of qualities he possessed: he felt that in such a situation he looked at his best. Do not let us, then, withhold from him the pleasure of telling how he acquitted himself:

“I make my Druggermen return with this answer, That there could not be a thing more grievous to the King my Masters subjects then to have their ships employd’ in this manner, for our ships were not like the French ships and other Nations, but ships that carry’d great wealth, besides that the Captains were bound by Charter Party not to goe out of their way upon forfeiture of their estates, if not their lives; That if I being at the Court could not be heard as to the defence of this Right, what could I doe when I was absent from the Court?”

The Kehayah replied that there were no ships in the port of Smyrna ready to sail but the English, and the Grand Signor’s need was urgent: he looked upon Finch as the greatest friend to the Empire amongst all Ambassadors, so that a denial would be taken very unkindly, especially when he came to the Court to ask favours and would grant none. Sir John realised that it would never do to disoblige the Turks at a moment when he needed their goodwill, by refusing what they considered a very small thing—a thing to which they had been used, and, for the rest, a thing which they could take by force. But he thought to try a personal appeal first, “and then, if I must, to doe it in as obliging a manner as I could.” So he sent his Dragomans back to tell the Kehayah that he would wait upon him and bring his own answer.

“When I came to him I gave him leave to use all his Arguments and all his pressures, which he did with great earnestnesse, before I spake one word; but thereby having a sense within my selfe that it could not be avoided, before I answerd’ him one word, I plucked out the letter of Command, which I had in my pockett, prepared in case I found things irremediable, which I wrote to the Consul of Smyrna for to land the Aga at Tunis, which I deliverd’ him, and told him, Sir, There is the Command, of which you now being in possession you may well give me leave to speak all the Arguments of prejudice that wee lye under by this action, the end of which onely is to make you sensible that you ought not to presse me in this point at any other time. So I made him very apprehensive of the inconveniences he brought us to, and he promisd’ me to be very tender allway’s in it, and this way of treating with him seemd’ to please him very much.”

Did diplomat ever yield to pressure with a better grace? And what shall we say of that dramatic plucking out of the letter from his pocket: just when the Kehayah least expected such a thing? It was a great gesture. Then, again, think of the originality of yielding first and arguing afterwards! No wonder the Kehayah was delighted at “this way of treating with him.”

But Sir John had not yet exhausted the possibilities of the situation: “Being thus reducd’ to order a ship to land him at Tunis, I bethought my selfe how to make use of a bad markett, and so made it my request to him that, finding in my last Audience with the Gran Vizir that he did utterly disapprove the actions of the Tripolines, promised me to endeavour to remedy them, I offerd’ him amongst other expedients this for one that the Gran Vizir would be pleasd’ to write a letter of resentment to them at Tripoli, and command them to make restitution of what depredations were made upon His Majesty’s subjects ships, which if they gave obedience to, I would write to His Majesty’s V: Admirall Sir John Narbrough, to prepare him for it, and that if the Commission He had from His Majesty would permitt Him to accept of it (which I had reason to beleive) Peace would follow.”[123]

A promise was given that the Vizir would write in that sense. Whether he did or not (nobody ever saw the letter),[124] Sir John, taking much for granted, wrote on his own account to Narbrough, how in consequence of his representations “the Gran Signor was this day pleasd’ to give by the Visir Azem His severe Commands to the Dei of Tripoli and that Goverment, to make you Restitution of whatsoever was by the men of warr of that place taken out of the ships of His Majesty’s subjects.” He added: “the Gran Visir desird’ me to write to you,” (a bit of diplomatic licence—nothing to speak of!) “that having Restitution made you, the warr might cease.” For such a consummation Sir John devoutly prayed, not without good reason; but, of course, he did not presume to dictate to the Admiral.

“Sir,” he goes on, “Persons in your command are under Instructions from which you cannot deviate: I can onely tell you, that His Majesty having Restitution, has a dore opend’ with Honour to goe out of a warr that will be of a certain expense but of an uncertain issue, for I am not so great a stranger to your worth, but that I know t’ will be harder for you to find the Enemy then to beat Him: In the Interim when Restitution is offerd, the Agreement between the Crowns seems to enjoyn a Peace. If so, your Prudence knows how to serve yourselfe of this advice, and to endear the manner of doeing what His Majesty’s Interest requires to be done howsoever. But if you have orders of a different nature, and of later injunction, then I know of, I cannot who owe entire obedience to the King our Masters Commands to the utmost Puntiglio, speake any thing: Onely if your orders allow you to conclude Peace upon Restitution, I think you will doe His Majesty’s Honour right, and your owne Reputation no wrong to renew the Peace; which if you doe, I pray send me early notice of; and if you doe not, the Reasons why, that in this great Empire I may vindicate the friendship his Majesty owns with the Gran Signor and secure the great estates of his subjects the Levant Company.”[125]

These transactions illustrate sufficiently the graver side of Sir John’s employment during the festive season; what follows exhibits him in a lighter vein.

Our Ambassador knew that there is nothing people like better than attentions: those little offices of civility which, by flattering their pride, never fail to conciliate their friendship or at least their good-will; and he carried his attentions from the highest down to the lowest with an assiduity which would have done credit to Dudley North himself.

For instance, he had a large English mastiff which had worsted bears of the greatest size and savagery in single-fight. Aware of the Imperial Hunter’s tastes, he hastened to send him this ferocious dog as a present: “which,” the Rev. John tells us, “the Grand Signor took mightily kindly.”[126] This courtesy, let us hope, made the Avji more friendly towards us than a more important service would have done. His subordinates had to be wooed according to their own particular weaknesses.

Among these, sad to relate, none was more prevalent than a weakness for wine and spirits. The Sultan, himself an habitual abstainer, had twice (in 1661 and 1670) forbidden the use of intoxicants: the second time by a most drastic edict most drastically enforced: taverns pulled down, butts broken in pieces, wine spilt, and the making and selling of it banned “upon no less penalty than hanging, or being putt into the Gallies.”[127] Yet the cult of Bacchus flourished more luxuriantly than ever. Legislation had overreached itself. The abolition of the tax had lowered the price of the article, so that those who before could afford to drink only one bottle openly, now drank two in secret. During Sir John’s stay at Adrianople intoxication was common among Turks of all classes, and particularly rampant in Court circles. With the exception of the Grand Signor and the Mufti, there was hardly a sober grandee. Our Chaplain, whom nothing escaped, has much to say about this phase of Turkish life also: “I have seen,” he declares, “the Vizier himself mamur, that is, crop sick severall times.” Alas! it was only too true. Ahmed Kuprili, up to the end of the siege of Candia (1669), had never tasted a drop of anything stronger than sherbet. But on his return from that campaign he stopped at the fair isle of Chios to refresh himself from his toils. This holiday, the first he had ever had, proved his undoing. For a whole fortnight he refreshed himself among the mastic groves of Chios, allowing no public affairs, however urgent, to interrupt his potations. Ahmed was nothing if not thorough. From that date he seemed anxious to atone for his past temperance, and at such a rate that, by 1675, his stomach could no longer keep warm without the most fiery of liqueurs.[128]

It was with wine, therefore, that Sir John wooed those whom his Dragomans worried. He sent them, at short intervals, samples of his cellar, and anxiously inquired how they were appreciated. “My Florence wines,” he reports, “were not likd’ at the Court, the wines I had out of the Pope’s State well approved; but the sack that I brought with me mightily admird’, and none esteemd’ to come near it; so that I gave Him [the Vizir] all I had, save onely one double Bottle I kept to drink His Majesty’s Health for the day that I should receive my Capitulations.”[129]

This way of dealing with the Turks was so novel that it excited comment among Sir John’s colleagues; and one day Count Kindsberg, as the two were “talking merrily together,” ventured to say “that He understood I went on with this Court by fair and Courtly mean’s, which was not others, nor His practise.” Sir John readily answered, “that he did well, and very possibly I might doe so to, he immitating his Master who hath had allway’s Warr with the Gran Signor and I mine who had allwayes Peace.”[130]

In another matter, too, Sir John showed himself surprisingly careless of his neighbours’ opinion. There was at Adrianople a disreputable Italian renegade, Count Bocareschi. The Ambassador shared this highly undesirable acquaintance with—the Rev. John Covel. Our Chaplain had known the Count for years and cherished no illusions about him: “this Bocareschi,” he told one of his Cambridge correspondents, “was a very parasite as [ever] lived: an excellent wit, and some little learning, the Latin toung perfectly; but for his damned traiterous perfidious tricks, was kick’t out of all publick ministers’ companyes.”[131] Yet, though he knew the Italian well for “a damned rogue” and “a beast,” as he calls him elsewhere, he cultivated him because the adventurer, being a Muteferrika, or quartermaster, had access to many places which the Rev. John itched to explore. From a like opportunism, his Excellency now entertained the ignoble Count at dinner nearly ever day. Diplomacy, like Providence, is not very particular in its choice of instruments. The proud Lord Ambassadour must stoop to caress a Muteferrika; the representative of a monarch who styled himself Defender of the Faith must consort with a renegade.

Thus during the six weeks that the Festivities lasted Sir John utilised every means he could think of for making himself popular with everybody and anybody who might be of use to him in his mission: bakshishing and flattering the Turks up to the scratch. His methods, scandalous though they might seem to others, to him appeared successful. The officials who received his fine wines gave him in return fair words: the Capitulations, Sir John understood, had been read over to the Grand Vizir several times: article after article was considered and passed. Finally, one day, as his Dragomans went by the house of Hussein Aga, Director of Customs, or, as the English of that day styled him, Chief Customer, that officer called them up and told them that all the demands his Excellency had put forward were granted; but he wondered that they should think such boons were to be had for nothing! Whereupon the Dragomans went to the Rais Effendi, who corroborated the Customer’s statement, adding that he had reason to believe that the Kehayah’s sentiments were the same. When this was reported to Sir John, he sent the Dragomans to the Kehayah, promising him 1000 sequins (£500) for the Grand Vizir, 1000 dollars (£250) for himself, and a similar sum for the Rais Effendi.[132]

That Sir John was overjoyed at the near prospect of his release it would be superfluous to state. There is a satiety of all things, even of rats, mice, fleas, bugs, Jew-stenches and Turkish festivities. How ill-advised he had been to put off his journey till this season! But now it is only a question of days—he will soon have done now.