CHAPTER XVI THE CASE OF MRS. PENTLOW

Among the numerous devices for the collection of cash to which the Grand Vizir had recourse before setting out on the war path, were some that touched foreign residents directly. Until his time all Franks had been exempt, by virtue of their Capitulations, from the Haratch, or poll-tax, levied upon non-Moslem Turkish subjects. The immunity extended to the Dragomans of the various European Embassies and Consulates, as well as to other natives under foreign protection. Every Ambassador received from the Porte a number of Barats, or Patents, which, though given to him for the benefit of his own servants only, he was, by an abuse of privilege, in the habit of selling to wealthy rayahs—Greeks, Armenians, or Jews: so that the suburbs of Galata and Pera had come to be peopled very largely by privileged persons (Baratlis). For some years past the Farmers of the Revenue had been drawing attention to this state of things, and even overstating it, in order to beat down the Farm; but their representations had produced no effect until 1677, when by order of Kara Mustafa an inquisitor was appointed to ascertain the facts. This official came over, and not being offered a bribe, as he expected and as one who had come on a similar errand some time before had received, executed his commission with exemplary conscientiousness. The upshot was an edict limiting foreign Ministers and Consuls to three Dragomans and obliging them to obtain fresh Barats for them. Moreover, the Grand Vizir ordained that every Frank who was married to a country-born woman should henceforth be deprived of the benefits of the Capitulations, pay Haratch, and be treated in all respects as a rayah.

As was natural, married Franks denounced the measure bitterly: they had come to Turkey on the understanding that they should live in it as free men, and now by a stroke of Kara Mustafa’s pen they were suddenly reduced to the position of slaves. The outcry was loudest among the French and the Dutch, upon whom the innovation fell most heavily: some forty Frenchmen, including the chief merchants, and three of the principal Dutch merchants had native wives. But notwithstanding all that the French Ambassador and the Dutch Resident could say or do, and all the endeavours of private individuals, and all their offers of money, not the least grace was shown to them. The rich French merchants escaped the consequences of the edict by purchasing titular Consulships at Gallipoli, Athens, and so forth; but their poorer compatriots were disfranchised. The English had so far been very little affected. Sir John had easily obtained the necessary Patents for his Dragomans. Nor did the marriage disqualification trouble them, as, with very few exceptions, our colony consisted of gay bachelors.[221]

But now—soon after Kara Mustafa’s return to Adrianople—there arose a case which was to cost our countrymen dearly.

Mr. Samuel Pentlow, a wealthy English merchant of Smyrna, who was married to a Greek lady, had just died, leaving his widow and his children—a son about three years of age and a daughter three or four months old—to the care of his Assigns, Mr. Gabriel Smith and our old acquaintance Mr. John Ashby, with instructions that they should be sent home to enjoy the lands and other possessions he owned in England, together with his Smyrna estate, which was commonly estimated at something between two hundred thousand and half a million dollars: fruit of thirty years’ labour in the Levant. In obedience to the wishes of the deceased, the Assigns took passage for his family in an English ship about to sail from Smyrna. But the other residents, fearing, in view of Kara Mustafa’s recent edict, that the departure of the woman and children without official permission might expose the colony to the Grand Vizir’s attentions, protested to the Consul and the Ambassador, who agreed that this business could not safely be done in a clandestine manner. The Assigns, therefore, entered into negotiations with the Cadi. This gentleman was quite willing to wink; but he demanded his reward in advance, while Messrs. Smith and Ashby would not part with a single asper until after the thing was done. Their caution offended the sensitive Cadi, who, out of spite, hastened to inform the Grand Vizir of the contemplated elopement.

Kara Mustafa so far had only had enough of English gold to stimulate his appetite, not enough to satisfy it: gratification but gave him ampler zest. He only waited for an occasion to take another and bigger bite. And here was the best of all imaginable occasions. Without delay he passed the information on to the Grand Signor, who, in his turn, consulted the Mufti: What should be done to Turkish subjects that attempted to fly the country? The oracle responded that they deserved to have their property confiscated: that was the Law. A decree was accordingly issued, and despatched to Smyrna by an Aga, who also had orders to bring Messrs. Smith and Ashby to Adrianople that they might give an account of the estate. This done, another messenger was despatched to Constantinople with a letter from the Grand Vizir for the Ambassador, notifying to him the fact and asking him to send to Adrianople a Dragoman to be present at the examination of the Assigns: which, Sir John said, was very civil of the Vizir; “but this civility was attended by a Sting in the Tayl bidding me take care that in Smirna nothing was acted contrary to this Command.”

The message upset Sir John very much. He did not want to have any more trouble with the terrible Vizir. Things had been going on so well—and now this Sting in the Tayl! Sir John was angry—not with Kara Mustafa, nor even with Messrs. Smith and Ashby: strange to say, he was angry with the late Mr. Pentlow. His thoughts of the deceased, when he reported the case to the Secretary of State, became winged words—his quill an arrow barbed and envenomed: “He is the onely man since our Trade into Turky that ever marryed Here, and was worth any thing,” he wrote, and as he wrote, his wrath grew into virulence: “How it [Pentlow’s estate] was gott I know not, How he livd’ I know, He would not afford Himselfe bread, but livd’ upon other Merchants’ Tables; After the Birth of His Sonne the first child, when the Mother was bigg of a second, He dischargd’ a Pistoll unwares just behind her back to make Her miscarry, That charges might not encrease.”[222]

It would be idle to enter into a serious examination of these scurrilous irrelevancies. That the Pentlow fortune had not been built up wholly with clean hands, may easily be credited (few great fortunes ever are); and there is some evidence that the late merchant had not been exceptionally careful about his methods.[223] But what, in the name of common sense and common decency, had the ethics of the deceased to do with the case? The question at issue was one of law: it all turned upon the interpretation of a clause in the Capitulations, which ran as follows: “If any Englishman shall come hither either to dwell or traffique, whether he be married or unmarried, he shall be free.” Hitherto this clause (which figured in the Capitulations of all other nations also) had been construed by everybody as including Europeans married to native as well as to foreign women; and the Turks had never questioned that construction, until Kara Mustafa, the year before, had thought fit to announce that “that Article was to be understood onely of such who were marryd’ to those that were not subjects of the Gran Signor.” Was he justified in so doing? The Levant Company thought not. In an account of this case presented to the King, it emphatically maintained that the Turkish contention that “Pentlow his wife and children were subjects to the Grand Signor” was a breach of “the Article wee have in Our Capitulations to the contrary.”[224] On the other hand, the Company’s Treasurer at Constantinople, after recording both interpretations, refused to commit himself to a definite pronouncement, though, on the whole, he thought that, “in a case any thing dubious, it is shrewdly to be feared that their [the Turks’] interpretation will stand before ours.”[225] The Ambassador, however, preferred the line of least resistance. Rather than risk another conflict with the Grand Vizir, he accepted without question his view of the matter. “Pentlow,” he wrote, “by marrying a Greeke made Himselfe a subject to the Gran Signor, as the Visir in Pentlow’s life time had declard’; the Turkish Law making them all so. But Pentlow having children They without all dispute were by the Turkish Law born subjects.”

Acting upon this trouble-saving view, Sir John had tried to dissuade the Assigns from sending away the widow and children, and when he perceived that his remonstrances made no impression upon them, he advised the Consul to keep out of the affair. But he did not venture to issue a categorical prohibition, lest he should be accused of betraying the Pentlow estate into the hands of the Turks, “who,” it might have been said, “had not otherwise taken notice of their advantage.”[226] From this neutral attitude nothing could induce Sir John to depart. However, he sent his Dragoman with a letter to the Vizir, to assist the Assigns—at least so he says; though, according to another version, before the Grand Vizir’s disturbing message had reached the Ambassador, his Dragoman, Signor Antonio Perone, had gone to Adrianople with Mr. North on some other affairs, and to their surprise they found the Assigns with the Chief Dragoman of the Smyrna Consulate already there. Be that as it may, Messrs. Smith and Ashby certainly did not profit by the presence of those gentlemen; but, left to their own resources, made a mess of the business.

To begin with, they declared that all the property entrusted to them amounted to no more than 50,000 dollars. Kara Mustafa was not convinced; common report credited the late merchant with ten times that amount; and he already knew Mr. Ashby. He therefore informed him and his co-administrator that, unless they rendered a true account, they would have their arms and legs broken, or at least be put into the galleys. At the sound of these gruesome threats, Messrs. Smith and Ashby raised the inventory to 70,000 dollars: and that, they said, was all. But the Turks still refused to believe them: the whole truth or torture! At length the Assigns, overcome by fear, agreed to deliver within two months 90,000 dollars: 50,000 for the Grand Signor’s Exchequer; 30,000 for the Grand Vizir; and 10,000 for his Kehayah. Then the Turks proceeded to give a final turn to the screw—one of those humorous little turns that marked every Turkish extortion: Messrs. Smith and Ashby were made to promise the Aga, who had escorted them from Smyrna and who would escort them back and keep them in custody until payment was completed, a present of 3500 dollars “for his pains and charges.”[227]

Kara Mustafa, too, had his little joke. After finishing with the Assigns, he informed the Ambassador that he had done him a friendly turn: he had interceded with the Grand Signor on his behalf and had prevailed upon his Majesty to pardon him—for 90,000 dollars—the crime of endeavouring to send away the Grand Signor’s subjects: the Ambassador must now take care that the money was paid within the time agreed upon.

The humour of this message was lost upon Sir John: “Two things here I cannot understand,” he gravely told the Secretary of State, “First, How I come to be taxd’ of an Action I expressely wrote against to the Consul at Smirna many moneths together, and made him disown it. Secondly, how I come to be responsible for a summe of mony, for the freeing of Private Persons and a Private Estate, by virtue of an Agreement made without my Notice: Suppose the Rack and Tortures had made them subscribe 10 Times that summe?” Was this what he got after all his strenuous efforts not to enmesh himself in the snares of that unspeakable Kehayah and his master? Verily, the ways of the Turks were past comprehension. “It seems they looke upon Publick Ministers Here as Publick Hostages; and will have the Prince to answer for the miscarriages of every one of their subjects.”[228]

Meanwhile the subjects in question were beginning to regret at leisure the bargain they had huddled up in panic. On their way to Smyrna they paid the Turks 10,000 dollars on account, and when they got there they made some further payments. But presently they perceived that they had not so many assets of the deceased in their hands as they thought, and what they had it was not easy to dispose of—who dared buy goods that lay under Kara Mustafa’s thumb? After selling all they could at such prices as they could get, they still found themselves short of the stipulated sum by 20,000 dollars. In their perplexity they asked the Nation for a loan wherewith to clear themselves. Both the Factory of Smyrna and that of Constantinople unanimously petitioned the Ambassador to advance the money out of the Levant Company’s Treasury, in order to avoid an “avania.” Kara Mustafa, they knew, would stick at nothing. But the Ambassador refused to interfere. He would do nothing to countenance the Turkish pretension that the Public was in any way responsible for the liabilities of individuals.

To crown the wretched Assigns’ embarrassment, the Turks would not wait for the day of payment. They demanded the balance at once, and, on being told that the money was not available, they seized the house in which the widow lived, broke open her late husband’s warehouses, and put the goods they found therein up for sale. But the plunder meeting with few buyers at Smyrna, most of it was sent up to Constantinople, and the remainder, as was natural in the circumstances, fetched only a fraction of its real value. When the Turks had counted the proceeds, they declared that there was still a deficit of 15,000 dollars to be made good. Utterly demoralised by this catastrophe, Messrs. Smith and Ashby abandoned all thoughts of fulfilling their bargain, and fled to the Ambassador for protection. His Lordship answered that what they suffered was entirely their own doing: he could not free them from an engagement to which they had set their signatures; but he would see what he could do to mitigate their distress by obtaining for them, if possible, an extension of the time limit. The Assigns declined such qualified assistance, and declared that they washed their hands of the whole business. So the Turks, who, on their part, were determined not to remit one asper of their bond, put them in prison.

This brought upon the stage Mrs. Pentlow. While our men of the West were content with a rôle of Oriental passivity, this lady of the East decided on direct action.

In the springtime of the year (1679), when the Imperial Court arrived at Constantinople, the widow, taking one of her children, went up to the capital with the intention, it was said, of making a personal appeal to the Grand Signor. The Grand Signor’s Ministers, alarmed, endeavoured, partly by fair and partly by other means, to deter her. She persisted, and at last got back her house and some money for her expenses, and, as to the Assigns, the promise that they should be released for 2000 dollars—a concession which Kara Mustafa could well afford to make, for the tin brought to Constantinople from Pentlow’s warehouse, when sold, had yielded a large sum above the estimate at which it had been taken, almost making up the balance due.

Mrs. Pentlow returned to Smyrna thinking that the Assigns would be pleased with her efforts. But Messrs. Smith and Ashby were past being pleased with anything. Though their liability had narrowed down to a matter of only 2000 dollars, they refused to pay. In vain did their friends urge them to be sensible. They met all counsels with the angry obstinacy of exasperated sheep: they would not disburse another penny: they would rather lie in prison till a new Ambassador came out, when, they doubted not, justice would be done them. They had been robbed, they cried, by the Kehayah and his accomplices. The Grand Signor knew nothing of it: it only required a competent ambassador to bring their case to his notice, and all would be well. The Turks, failing to bend, decided to break, their obstinacy by throwing them into a dungeon. Our merchants, however, had by this time lashed themselves into furious recklessness: they resisted and very nearly killed the officer who came to remove them.

Things had reached this dangerous climax when the Smyrna Factory stepped in to avert a tragedy. By the instrumentality of the Chaplain there was raised a fund for the prisoners’ redemption; and so Mr. Ashby is out of it again, without bone broken—not, we hope, without instruction from the adventure. As for Mrs. Pentlow and her children, we shall hear of them again in due time.

Sir John Finch, as usual, praised God that the trouble was over, and took to himself credit for keeping it off himself and the Consul of Smyrna and for saving the Company 20,000 dollars by his non-interference. Things, he believed, might have been much worse but for his masterly inactivity: “so high did the Sea’s run, which God be thanked, are now brought to a Calm.” But how long would the calm last?—“the being in Turky under this Goverment,” he says, “is like the being in a ship, where though Wee are this houre under a fair wind and a serene skye, the Next hour may bring us a cloudy Heaven, and a fierce Storm. And I protest to you, it takes my whole thoughts to become a Good Pilot.”[229]