FOOTNOTES:

[106] Even in touching upon such an open secret as the Turkish Ministers’ susceptibility to the charm of dollars, Finch dares not speak out: “the greatest arguments I cannot write to you without a Cipher, reflecting upon great Persons,” he tells Coventry: Sept. 9, 1675.

[107] Finch to Coventry, Feb. 24/March 6, 1674-75, Sept. 9, 1675; Covel’s Greek Church, Pref. pp. lii, liv; Rycaut’s Memoirs, pp. 315-7; Life of Dudley North, pp. 104-5; Vandal’s Nointel, pp. 136, 141-2; Hammer, vol. xi. pp. 362, 425.

[108] See the despatches of all those ambassadors in S.P. Turkey. A few of them are in print: Sir Thomas Roe’s Negotiations (1621-28). The story may be read, however, in Rycaut’s History and in Covel’s Greek Church.

[109] Father Bonaventura to Winchilsea, July 24, 1661, Finch Report, p. 137.

[110] At the same time we find “the Eldest Son of the Church” supporting in Germany and Hungary the Protestants he persecuted in France; yet historians with a faculty for generalisation and idealisation tell us that the struggle which rent Europe at that period was essentially a religious struggle!

[111] S.P. Turkey, 17.

[112] Winchilsea to Nicholas, Dec. 19, 1662, S.P. Turkey, 17. In contrast with this, see numerous letters, beginning so early as April 1662, in the Finch Report. The same volume (p. 297) contains the King’s permission to the Ambassador to ignore his Instructions regarding the Greek Church; it is dated, Dec. 23, 1663.

[113] See “Instructions for Our Trusty and Wellbeloved Servant Sir Daniell Harvey, Knt., at Whitehall, Aug. 3, 68,” S.P. Turkey, 19. The clause in question is also omitted from the Instructions to Finch. It reappears in those to Lord Chandos, 1680—when the anti-Catholic agitation in England was at its height.

[114] Covel’s Greek Church, Pref. p. xi.

[115] Finch to Arlington, July 27, S.N., 1674, Coventry Papers.

[116] Finch to Coventry, Feb. 24/March 6, 1674-75.

[117] Nointel’s letter from Rama seems to have been lost, but its purport is preserved in his letter from Tripoli, July 12, 1674.

[118] Covel’s Greek Church, Pref. p. lii.

[119] Winchilsea to Fra Dominico del Arzival, Oct. 10, 1662, Finch Report, p. 218.

[120] Finch to Coventry, Sept. 9, 1675; Life of Dudley North, p. 105.

[121] Covel’s Greek Church, Pref. p. vi.

[122] Life of Dudley North, pp. 106-7.

[123] Finch to Coventry, Sept. 9, 1675.

[124] Life of Dudley North, p. 106.

[125] Finch to Narbrough, Adrianople, May 24, S.V. 1675, Coventry Papers.

[126] Covel’s Diaries, p. 238.

[127] Harvey to Williamson, Sept. 5, 1670, S.P. Turkey, 19. Cp. Rycaut’s Memoirs, pp. 105, 285.

[128] Covel’s Diaries, p. 245; Rycaut’s Memoirs, pp. 282-3, 318.

[129] Finch to Coventry, Sept. 9, 1675.

[130] Finch to Coventry, Sept. 9, 1675. Rycaut, who always reflects the conventional view, would have agreed with Kindsberg: “It is certainly a good Maxime for an Ambassador in this Countrey, not to be over-studious in procuring a familiar friendship with Turks,” Present State, p. 170. This maxim arose from the belief that “a Turk is not capable of real friendship towards a Christian.”

[131] Covel’s Diaries, p. 226.

[132] Life of Dudley North, p. 107.