CHAPTER XIX SIR JOHN’S “TICKLISH CONDITION”

Our Ambassador bad every right to expect that the ransom he had paid down would be accepted by Kara Mustafa as a price of immunity from persecution for the remainder of his sojourn in Turkey. But it was not to be. Kara Mustafa had in store for him another tempest—a tempest beside which all those he had outlived might seem as spells of fine weather. It arose, by a singular irony, out of the very event which had once filled him with so much pride and so many hopes of a serene and prosperous career at the Ottoman Court.

It will be remembered that the late Grand Vizir had relieved Finch from the importunities of the Pasha of Tunis by sending that worthy to a Governorship in the utmost confines of Arabia—somewhere beyond Egypt—near Ethiopia: nobody exactly knew where, but everybody earnestly hoped that, wherever his place of honourable exile was, he would never quit it. Finch, as we know, had not forgotten him: every now and again, in moments of depression, thoughts of the Pasha forced themselves upon his mind; and these apprehensions, once vague, had become particularly vivid of late.

The thing which Sir John feared came to pass at last.

Towards the end of June 1680 the Pasha returned to Constantinople with his grievance, which, carefully nursed in the tropical climate of his residence, had grown to gigantic dimensions. In 1674 he had simply desired that the Ambassador should procure restitution of his remaining goods from the corsair. Now he demands them from him. Moreover, now he alleges his loss to be far greater than he had represented it before, and, indeed, greater than it could possibly be.

He began by applying to the Vizir’s Kehayah, to the Rais Effendi, and to the Chaoush-bashi. Sir John sent to them a Dragoman who set forth his case, relating all that he had done for the Pasha in Italy and Malta out of sheer courtesy. The Ministers appeared fully convinced, and Finch thought that the story had ended; but it was only beginning. The plaintiff, disappointed with the result of his first step, addressed himself directly to the Vizir, who appointed the same three officers to hear the Pasha and the Ambassador face to face, and to report to him. Finch confronted the Pasha accordingly; the plaintiff’s demands and his own defence were heard, and, to all seeming, the case went wholly as he wished: the Rais Effendi undertook to obtain a favourable verdict from the Vizir for a trifle of two purses, that is, a thousand dollars, which sum was promised to be paid when sentence had been issued. On receipt of the report, the Vizir, as was anticipated, announced that he must take cognisance of the cause himself, and summoned both parties to appear before his tribunal.

Friday, September 3rd, Sir John goes to the Divan, and finds the Grand Vizir seated on the bench with the two Cadileskers, or Chief Justices of Europe and Asia. All the great Ministers of the Porte are also present. Kara Mustafa opens the proceedings by bidding the Pasha produce the list of his losses, and saying that, if the plaintiff can prove his claim, he will find him a paymaster and clap up the Ambassador in the Seven Towers. The list is produced and read out: it amounts to 700 purses, or 350,000 dollars! The reading over, Finch asks: “Who has taken all those goods?” “The Corsair,” answers the Pasha. “He that has taken them, let him restore them”—a good retort; but it does not seem to please the Grand Vizir.

“Ambassador,” he breaks in sharply, “you and all other ambassadors are sent hither by your respective princes to answer for the lives and estates of all Mussulmans all over the world that are endamaged or suffer by your respective subjects, and you are here a hostage to answer for all damage done by Englishmen all over the world.”

Sir John, “knowing how subitaneous the Visir is in all his motions and not judging it prudent to provoke him at first,” would fain decline a direct answer to that strange doctrine—strange, yet, from the Turkish point of view, perfectly orthodox. But as Kara Mustafa, with great heat, calls for an answer, he replies:

“The Gran Signor is a Great Emperour and yet He cannot secure His ships from Gran Cairo from the Corsaros, nor His Caravans by land from the Arabians, both being often robbed. Neither can my Master secure His own subjects or the Gran Signor’s from pirates; for none but God Almighty could doe it.”

This soft answer turned away the Vizir’s wrath, and the case went on.

Finch pleads that he is not in the least concerned in the Pasha’s losses, seeing that the ship from which his goods were taken was no English ship, and the captain, a renegade of his country and religion settled and married at Leghorn, was the Great Duke’s subject. But even supposing, for the sake of argument, that he were concerned? Here is the discharge by which the Pasha’s own Procurator released Captain Chaplyn and all Englishmen from any liability in the matter.

How that discharge had been obtained we know already; also the statement that the Mediterranean was no English ship was less accurate than we could have wished. But Sir John is here to defend a case, not to speak the truth; and, it must be owned, he defends it as one to the manner born. Unfortunately, the Grand Vizir has no taste for dialectics. A Turk had come to grief whilst travelling under the English flag, and the English Nation was bound to indemnify him: that is the sum and substance of the whole matter, in accordance with the traditional Turkish view[259]—a view to which, in the present instance, the English Government appeared to lend colour by recovering part of the Pasha’s property: if part, why not the whole? Finch, too, by dwelling on the point of the ship’s and captain’s nationality, did he not implicitly admit the validity of that view? Therefore, the Vizir, breaks into the argument by ordering the Ambassador to write to his King to cause full restitution of the Pasha’s goods. Sir John answers that what His Majesty had already done was done out of kindness and not from any obligation; it would be useless to trouble His Majesty. But Kara Mustafa insists with so much vehemence that Sir John has to say, if His Excellency so commands, he will write, though nothing can come of it, as it is impossible to find what pirates and thieves have stolen. The Vizir presses the matter no further, and the case goes on.

The Pasha denies that the Aga in question was his Procurator. Finch produces a document under the Pasha’s own hand and seal, drawn up at Constantinople before a Cadi, in which he recognised him as such. This unexpected stroke disconcerts the Pasha, but it does not disarm him. Changing his ground, he denies that he has received any of the goods recovered at Leghorn or Malta. Finch produces the receipt which the Pasha had given to his Aga. Unabashed, the Pasha changes his ground again and alleges that the English Consul at Tunis had given him a Hoggiet, guaranteeing the property laden on Captain Chaplyn’s ship: but for that guarantee, he says, he would have gone overland. Finch replies, First, that the Barbary Coast is not under his jurisdiction and therefore the Consul must answer for himself; Secondly, that, even if the Consul were under him, an inferior could not bind his superior, any more than any Pasha in the Empire could bind the Grand Vizir; Lastly, that he cannot believe that any Consul of His Majesty’s would become surety. Therefore he asks to see the Hoggiet. The Pasha says that it was taken from him with the rest of his property. Finch retorts that a document of such importance could easily have been carried about him, and that, though he is not concerned in the loss of his gold and jewels, yet it is probable he has lost neither, since he had time to carry out of the ship five boatloads of goods before the Corsair came up with the Mediterranean, and men do not usually leave gold and jewels to the last. This the Pasha does not deny; but changes his ground once more by denouncing the Captain. Finch replies that, although he is not answerable for the Captain, yet he had brought him along with him to answer for himself: Captain Chaplyn had stayed at Smyrna seven months, and the Pasha’s Procurator had given him, before a Cadi, a certificate of good conduct.

At this point the Cadilesker who was to pronounce judgment began to write down his verdict. But the Vizir stopped him, saying that the case could not be decided at one hearing. Finch “much misliked” this; but, of course, he could do nothing. So the case was adjourned.

In spite of that ominous move, the Ambassador left the Court not without hopes: both the Cadileskers had throughout declared for him, and the Vizir had distributed his thunders pretty evenly between the litigants. He was not, however, allowed to continue in this hopeful state of mind long. Next day, the Vizir’s Kehayah and Rais Effendi sent for his Dragoman and told him that a very large sum was demanded from the Ambassador: the Pasha, who governed Tunis during an insurrection, had raised his great fortune by plundering rebels and, in addition, had given the whole of it to the Grand Signor: therefore, the Vizir would expect a good deal to rid him of this claim. Sir John’s answer was that “he could as a gentleman thank his friends, but could not as an Ambassador treat by way of contract for an asper.” This brought a milder demand: 15 purses for the Vizir and 7 for the other Ministers—altogether 11,000 dollars.

To those who made it, this demand no doubt appeared moderate, considering the amount of the claim involved; but our Ambassador thought it monstrous, considering that the claim was nothing but a false pretence. Besides, would compliance really free him from further molestation? Sir John did not believe it would. He knew the Turks too well by now, and simply looked upon these overtures as a new example of “their old way of inviting a man to treat and then screwing him up to what they please.” So he returned a categorical answer in writing to the effect that he was in no way to blame; he had not only a most just cause, but also a cause full of merit; that this suit was directed against the King his master, the merchants being not in the least concerned in it, and that, consequently, he could not treat for a single asper; but to those who should free him from this injurious pretension, when the business was done, he could and would show his gratitude. “So,” he concluded, “remitting my selfe to the justice of the Gran Visir, I implore the Divine Protection, and shall acquiesce in His Holy Will, happen what will.” In answer to this, the Kehayah sent Finch word that he should repent his rejection of the proposed adjustment.[260]

That, indeed, was the opinion of the English merchants, too. So far from not being in the least concerned in the matter, they were terribly interested, and warned the Ambassador that, if the Vizir’s mouth was not stopped at once, they might have to pay very heavily in the end. Some even reproached him for driving the Company to a dangerous precipice. But the Ambassador, having been censured by the Company for his other adjustments, was this time determined to stand firm at all hazards and let Kara Mustafa do his worst.[261]

Some twenty-four days passed, and then the Vizir’s Jew came to inform Sir John “with many threats intermingled” of the resolution taken at the Porte—that he should enter into negotiations for an agreement. Sir John referred the emissary to his former declaration, adding that, far from seeing any reason to recede from it, he must confirm and ratify it again, “and the rather because since the writing I had receivd positive orders from England not to enter into any contract”—he could not make one step further: the Vizir “might doe what he pleasd.” “Thus,” he reported on September 29th, “stands this case, either victory or imprisonment of my person is like to be the result of it.”[262]

It is impossible to contemplate without admiration the intrepidity with which Finch faced the alternative before him. Happen what might, he had decided to hold out, and the only effect which the expostulations of the English and the threats of the Turks produced on his decision was to strengthen it. Courage, as we have seen, was by no means a conspicuous feature of Sir John’s character; yet on this occasion he displayed all the steadfastness of a hardened fighter. He would not let the Turks lure or intimidate him on to ground which no Ambassador could consent to occupy without grave detriment to the interests confided to him. The question was vital “not onely in regard of the Great Summe which under all the variety of demands is at the lowest very high: but in regard it is a Precedent of pernicious consequence to Our Commerce, so long as this Visir livs.”[263]

Kara Mustafa’s choler at this calm defiance is not inconceivable. It behoved him to teach the English, as he had taught other Giaours, what they got by defying his thunder. You refused all terms of peace? You shall have war.

On October 1st the Ambassador was once more summoned before the Grand Vizir’s tribunal—to plead the same cause for the third and last time. He went, accompanied by five of the leading English merchants and his Dragomans. What his emotions were as he went we know from his own mouth. Victory or imprisonment, he had said, with a certain glow of internal pride—like that of a resolute pilot amid the piled tempests. But Sir John was not either a hero or a martyr by nature: he was merely a man with a sense of duty—which does not exclude other senses. With perfect frankness he confesses that “When I went to the Tryall, accompanyd’ onely with five of the chief of the Factory, wee all, and our Druggermen too, had apprehensions of imprisonment.”

The manner in which the proceedings were conducted was not calculated to reassure the defendants. The Pasha’s claim had in the interval risen to the colossal figure of 1000 purses, that is, half-a-million dollars: so much for this, so much for that. He went on specifying the various items, until the Grand Vizir himself ordered him to stop—he had heard enough. Then turning to the Ambassador, he asked for his answer. Sir John’s answer was the same as before: a flat denial of responsibility, backed with the familiar arguments. But how poor is the eloquence of him who advocates a cause which we disapprove: how inadmissible his statements, how unconvincing his reasons! Kara Mustafa, who had put on his most thunderous look for the occasion, overruled everything that might be said for the defence with such truculence, that “when wee saw how prodigiously things were carry’d against us, wee thought imprisonment unavoidable”—we already saw ourselves in the cell of the condemned....

In this fearful emergency Sir John had an inspiration—one of those inspirations that panic sometimes begets. It occurred to him suddenly to beg for time to write home for instructions. Contrary to his own expectation, Kara Mustafa agreed to suspend proceedings till the end of February—five months being necessary for an interchange of communications between Constantinople and London. This prompt assent could easily be accounted for. In Turkey a request for time was commonly understood to be equivalent to a hint that the party had a mind to come to terms.[264] Certainly so the Grand Vizir understood it, though Sir John, far from suspecting the construction put upon his words, congratulated himself upon his strategy. “Had I not thus prevented the pronouncing of sentence,” he wrote next morning, “Wee had all not onely bin clapd’ up in prison, but the estates also of the Levant Company had bin violently seizd’ till I had complyd’ with the summe.” It was not, to be sure, an acquittal, but it was the next best thing—a respite. “Now I must say with the Italian, chi da tempo, da vita. I should think that, when the five moneths are expird’, it would not be hard to get three moneths more, though I doe not say that it is to be relyd’ upon for who knows this Visir.” Thus checking his own elation, he went on to press for his supersession. He had occupied that thorny seat on the Bosphorus long enough; it was time that somebody else had his turn. “I believe,” he told the Secretary of State, “most men will be of opinion that a new Ambassadour, accompanyd’ with particular orders and fresh Letters from His Majesty relating to this case, will, in so palpably a just cause, make the false pretensions of the Bassà of Tunis wholely vanish.”[265]

People at home entirely agreed that a new broom was needed to clear up the mess in Stambul, and steps had already been taken to provide one. After some discussion on the advisability of sending out an ambassador at all whilst Kara Mustafa raged in Turkey, the Levant Merchants, at a Court held on October 3rd, 1679, had decided to take the risk; six months later they petitioned the King to order Sir John Finch’s return, so that they might select a successor; and, having obtained the King’s permission so to do, they took a ballot on April 22nd, 1680.[266]

It is a very curious thing that, though the Constantinople Embassy was a byword for difficulty and even for danger in the diplomatic world, and though few of its tenants had not, sooner or later, begged for recall as for an inestimable boon, yet there never were wanting keen candidates: the pay and perquisites offered an irresistible attraction, and, apparently, each would-be ambassador flattered himself that Fortune would prove kinder to him than she had done to his predecessors. No fewer than eight individuals (some of whom ought to have known better) were eager to step into Sir John’s tight shoes. One of these was our friend Paul Rycaut. As soon as the recall of Finch was decided upon, the ex-Consul, encouraged by his former chief Lord Winchilsea with assurances that “neither his person nor endeavours towards this promotion would be displeasing to his Majesty,” hastened to put in a claim with the Crown, dwelling on his past services, his qualifications, and “the knowne loyaltie of his family.” At the same time he canvassed the Levant Company, which, on his return home, had acknowledged its obligations to him with a gratuity. Everything tended to make Rycaut think that “he stood as faire in the nomination as any person whatsoever.” But suddenly the Earl of Berkeley, Governor of the Company, put an end to Rycaut’s expectations by announcing that the King did not wish that any one who had lived in Turkey “under a lesse degree and qualitie then that of an Ambassadour” should be chosen.[267]

Another aspirant was the Hon. Dudley North. He also felt sure that, with all his experience of Turkey, he would be able to do the nation better service there than anyone else. But his aspirations never got beyond the stage of aspirations. Before leaving Constantinople he had sounded his brothers, and they laughed him out of the project by telling him that he knew “as little of London and interest at Court here, as they did of Constantinople and the Turkish Court there.”[268] This, in fact, was the one fatal objection to North, as it was to Rycaut. Either of these gentlemen would have made an ideal envoy at the Porte: no contemporary Englishman could be compared with either in all the essential qualifications for the post. But neither stood the slightest chance; for neither possessed the influence (or, as they said in those days, the “interest”) without which qualifications then, as now, were of little account.

The other six suitors were men of weight in Court and commercial circles: Sir Thomas Thynne, Mr Thomas Neale, Major Knatchbull, Sir Phi. Matthewes, Sir Richard Deereham, and Lord Chandos. The last-named candidate was particularly well furnished with the qualifications that count. On one hand, he was connected, though remotely, with the Earl of Berkeley, Governor of the Company, and on the other, very closely, with Sir Henry Barnard, an influential Turkey Merchant whose daughter he had married. To these merits Chandos had just added by taking his freedom of the Company. Thus amply supported, he made no secret of his hopes to get the appointment; and the event showed that he was right. In the ballot mentioned, he was chosen by 72 voices as against the 55 given for Sir Thomas Thynne. There was some little doubt whether the King would confirm the choice, for Chandos was one of the “petitioning lords”—that is, one of the band of politicians who at that time of extreme party virulence were bitterly hated by the Court and its adherents for ventilating their views in the form of petitions addressed to the Crown: a hate which they repaid with generous interest, the nation being, in fact, divided into “Petitioners” and their “Abhorrers,” epithets equivalent to those of “Whig” and “Tory” that were just coming into fashion. Although the King could not punish these importunate patriots, he was not obliged to show them any preference. But, in truth, the very argument used to the disadvantage of Chandos was a very strong one in his favour. Charles at that particular moment had every reason to conciliate the popular party. He therefore magnanimously forgave Chandos his little indiscretion, and before the end of the year 1680 the Letters which accredited “Our Right Trusty and well belov’d James Lord Chandos, Baron of Sudely and one of the Peeres of this Our Kingdome of England” to the Porte, were signed at Whitehall.[269]

Meanwhile Sir John at Constantinople had enough to keep him busy. Two days had hardly elapsed since the adjournment of the case, when he received from Kara Mustafa’s Kehayah a request not to write to his king, as the Pasha of Tunis would appear against him no more—the Grand Vizir had freed him wholly from that suit—wherefore he expected a present commensurate with the service rendered. This was, of course, the logical sequel to the grant of time. Kara Mustafa in putting forward his demand was simply asking, in perfect good faith, for the fulfilment of what he imagined to be a tacit understanding. Sir John, as we have seen, had neither understood himself nor had he asked some more experienced Englishman to enlighten him. So he also in perfect good faith answered that, as to not writing, he could not oblige the Vizir, having already done so. As to his being wholly freed, he could not think himself clear of the Pasha’s pretensions until he had a formal sentence given in his favour, and a copy of it delivered to him. Had that been done, the Grand Vizir would not have found him wanting in due acknowledgments, but, as things stood, he was far from having any such security. Although he had appealed to the Capitulations, and to the Pasha’s own acquittances, he had been overruled on every point; nay, indeed, he had not heard one word in his favour except from the Cadilesker, who had rejected the Pasha’s witnesses. In the circumstances, he was “out of all capacity of answering the Visir’s expectation.”

The Kehayah, shocked at the Giaour’s perfidy, sent him word that he would make him, some way or other, pay the sum demanded thrice over, and drove his Dragomans out of the room with the coarsest abuse, calling them “infidels” and “dogs.” The wretched Interpreters fled in dread of being drubbed. Sir John’s feelings on hearing of this—who could paint them better than he?

In great amazement, the Ambassador sat down to give an exhaustive account of what had happened to both Secretaries of State at once, so that, if the Earl of Sunderland should be too preoccupied, he might at least secure the attention of Sir Leoline Jenkins. To Sunderland he writes: “My Lord, affayrs in this Court are incredible, indicible, nay really inconceivable. What is true to-day, is not true to-morrow. No promise is strong enough to bind. No reasons, be they never so cogent, powerfull enough to perswade. Impetuous passion, accompanyd’ with avarice, over rules all Laws and Capitulations....”[270]

The letter to Jenkins is even more pregnant with comments which depict the writer’s mental condition: “This is the State of things. I pray Acquaint his Majesty with it, that the Ambassadour here may be sure not to want Positive Orders and Directions, how to proceed by the end of February; that being the uttmost Time limited by the Visir. Nay Truly, The Violence of the Times here is such that I know not whether they will have Patience with me till the 150 dayes from the first of October are expired. For it may justly be feard, That by the Turkish Violence offerd’ to my Person, and to the Estates of the Kings Subjects under my Protection here, that I may be compelld’ to doe that, which is abhorrent to the Trust reposd’ in me, and my own reason. I have twice in Person appeard’ before this Visir in Publick Divan, a thing that no Publick Minister ever yet durst doe under this Visir, though His Prince was attacqud’. In these Appearances I may modestly say, I usd’ some resolution even when the Visir expressd’ much anger: I gott from Him 150 dayes respite, which I believe He now repents to have granted, thinking that all Ministers will from this Precedent, make the like plea when any demands are made upon them.”

He had written thus far when the Dragomans whom he had sent to the Porte about the present, given in accordance with the usual etiquette by all ambassadors at the Bairam, returned and told him that the Kehayah had said curtly, They had no need of his presents. If a Turk’s demand for bakshish was disturbing, his refusal of bakshish was terrifying. It was an act which, as the poor Ambassador added in his despatch, “every one that knows Turky, knows how to interpret.” It meant the Seven Towers. At the best that Ottoman Bastille was a miserable gaol, and even robust ambassadors had been known to contract in it mortal diseases. Sir John was anything but robust. The possibility that at any moment he might find himself shut up in that hideous prison—his body wasting away with sickness and his soul withering with hope of deliverance deferred—was more than he could bear. He closed his despatch with a heart-rending cry, which seems still to ring in the reader’s ear across the gulf of the dead centuries: “God Almighty protect me!”[271]

Shortly afterwards the Grand Signor left for Adrianople, followed by the Grand Vizir and his Kehayah, whose parting words to Sir John’s Dragoman were: “Let your Ambassador vaunt that he has outwitted us.” Outwitted them! when? how? Incredible though it will sound, Sir John even now has no inkling of the tragedy of cross-purposes in which he has entangled himself: so utterly out of touch, after seven years’ residence in Turkey, he remains not only with the Turks and their ways, but also with his own countrymen. Any factor at Galata could have solved the riddle for him; his Dragomans likewise. But Sir John is too aloof to ask them for a solution, and they do not volunteer one, because obviously they think that he has, indeed, outwitted the Vizir. Thus, while the world about him admires his astuteness, Sir John dolefully wonders what the meaning of that cryptic utterance may be. “I am apt to believe,” he repeats, “that the Visir was surprisd’ in granting me 5 moneths time; Upon second thoughts imagining that all Ministers would, upon all demands, from this Precedent, recurr to the same Expedient, which made the Kehaiah tell my Druggerman when he parted, in anger, Let your Ambassadour vaunt that he has outwitted us.” The more he thinks it over, the more probable does this explanation appear to Sir John. But, however that may be, “these things being thus, Wee are not to expect now (what I insinuated in my first letter as possible) any prorogation of time, but rigorous Proceeding. In the meantime how they will deal with Me or the Merchants by their forgery’s and Avanias, God know’s; for the Visir I fear sayes within Himselfe Who has resisted My Will? But at the best if His Majesty’s Commands and Directions accompanyd’ with His Letters to the Visir arrive not by the 27th of February next, The Ambassadour here will be at a great losse.”[272]

Sir John casts about for some means of conjuring away the storm he sees hanging over his head. At length an idea comes to him: those Bairam presents—true, the Kehayah had rejected them once; but what if we paid him the respect of sending them a day’s journey after him, “accompanyd’ with the addition of a rare pendulum, an excellent gold watch, and a long Perspective glasse”? Surely, such an act of humility could not fail to soften even an unspeakable Kehayah’s heart. But alas! the Kehayah is uncajoleable: he dismisses both the olive branch and the dove that brought it with contumely.

The days drag on, and the face of things remains as black as ever. It is the beginning of November. A month ago Sir John, buoyed up by his imaginary respite, was proud to feel that he had “carry’d this case so high”—that he had made good his bit of resolution—that he was the one mortal who had prevailed, if but for a short season, against the fiend incarnate. But he does not feel at all proud now. The disdainful silence of the Porte somehow cows him more than the vehemence to which he had been subjected before. He lives trembling at what this silence may portend. Utterly mystified and profoundly alarmed, he sends one of his Dragomans to the friendly Hussein Aga “to penetrate into the sense of the Court.” The Customer, being the last man who took leave of the Kehayah, would probably know what dark designs lay behind that cryptic utterance. The Dragoman returned just as Sir John finished his report. We have the result in a Postscript. Before the emissary opened his mouth, Hussein of his own accord said that he had twice spoken to the Kehayah, telling him that the King of England had suspended commerce with Turkey (he had the news from the Hollanders) and that now he might as well throw up his office and shut up the Custom-House, as the English were the only people who brought any considerable profit to it. That, he said, had made the Kehayah pause, but had not elicited one word. Next day, he added, he told the Kislar Aga, or Chief of the Black Eunuchs, the same thing. He concluded by sending Finch a message to the effect that he did well to keep up his resolution, for “things at last would end well.”[273]

The Customer’s information was correct: the Levant Company had decided at a General Court to suspend commerce with Constantinople and Smyrna temporarily, in order to “take from before the Turks those baits and occasion of temptations which the vastness of our trade hath of late years administered.” This resolution they submitted to the King and his Privy Council, for approval, justifying it by a minute account of “the many grievous oppressions” which the English merchants and Ambassador “of late years have sustained and at present labour under in Turkey, by the corruption of the Vizir Azem and other Turkish officers.”[274] It was a measure which several times in the past, at periods of similar stress, had been proposed as the only remedy for Turkish greed. But it had never yet been tried, with the result that the Turks, arguing that either the trade was lucrative enough to bear any amount of squeezing or that the English could not subsist without it (in the words of a Cromwellian Consul, “that if they should bore out our eyes to-day, yet we would return to trade with them again to-morrow”), set no limit to their rapacity.

It remained to be seen whether the remedy would prove efficacious now. Certainly the impression which the news of the strike had made on the Kehayah, “if true,” was encouraging. Also the Customer’s friendly message was comforting. These things revived Sir John’s drooping spirits somewhat. But they did not quite exorcise the anxiety that was gnawing at his heart. At no time since the Grand Vizir first declared war on him had the hope of peace seemed more remote. The only consolation Sir John had in his affliction was the knowledge that he was not the only sufferer. All his colleagues were in the same ticklish condition. The Dutch Minister’s difficulties have been described. The Bailo of Venice, notwithstanding the vast sums Kara Mustafa had already wrung from him, was faced with a fresh claim on his purse. The Resident of Genoa likewise groaned under another “avania.” Only the French Ambassador seemed exempt: though, after a full twelvemonth, he still continued to refuse audience unless he had it on the Soffah, nothing, “to all men’s astonishment,” had happened to him: yet even his position was so precarious that he bitterly repented having brought his lady and his daughter, an only child, with him.[275] Sir John noted the troubles of his neighbours with all the fortitude with which we note other people’s troubles; but, as the days went by, he was less able to endure his own.

Thus matters stood till the end of November—when the situation underwent a sudden change.