CHAPTER XIV 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.