CHAPTER XVII THE PILOT AT REST

For about ten months—that is, till the summer of 1680—Sir John Finch had no further opportunity of displaying his skill as a pilot. He was a mere passenger in the diplomatic vessel, and he availed himself of the privilege which belonged to his position by diligently noting the behaviour of his fellow-passengers. Sir John’s despatches have none of the verve of M. de Nointel’s descriptions of life and manners: he is never less entertaining than when he means to be so. Yet casual notices—occurrences mentioned as matters of course—sometimes creep in to relieve the formality of the narrative. “This Imperiall City,” he writes in June 1679, “is now filld’ with the whole Court; and the Gran Signor has filld’ all his Serraglio’s to the heigth of any former Precedent, with the choice Virgin beauty’s of his Empire, giving order for the providing of no lesse then five hundred at one time.” The writer, however, knows that this is not business: it has nothing to do with those “negotiations and practices” which it was his duty to keep an eye on. So he proceeds: “In the midst of all these enjoyments, there wants not the application of Christian Ministers in order either to the making or preserving peace.” There follows a record of these efforts for peace which, thanks to Kara Mustafa’s statesmanship, were to end in a war that brought the Ottoman Empire to the brink of the abyss. Little did Kara Mustafa dream that, in browbeating the representatives of Poland and Russia, of the German Empire and the Venetian Republic, he was digging his own grave. But that was still in the future. Meanwhile the Grand Vizir had all these Powers at, or rather under, his feet.

On the departure of the Palatine of Kulm, a Polish Resident was left at Constantinople. Nevertheless, King Sobieski now sent a special envoy charged to inform the Porte that the Poles had renewed their truce with the Muscovites for fifteen years longer. Poland thought it necessary to give this notice, lest the Turks should take umbrage: “Such is the awe which that halfe conquerd’ Kingdome hath of this Empire.”[230]

An envoy from Muscovy, at the same time, laboured for peace under conditions which anywhere outside Turkey would have been intolerable. Sixty Janissaries kept strict watch over him to prevent all access to his person; while Kara Mustafa sent the Capitan Pasha to fortify the Black Sea. By this move the Turks put “a Bridle into the Muscovites mouthes.” For the rest, it seemed unlikely that they had any desire to advance farther northwards, “their camels and horses not being able to endure the rigour of that climat.”[231]

The duped diplomat departed in disgust; but six months after another came to treat with the Porte and fared no better. Before admitting him to audience, the Grand Vizir obtained a translation of the letter he had brought: it was couched in the usual style of the Tsars, who loved to fill their letters with as high threats and as hyperbolical boasts and titles as the Sultans. The Vizir, incensed by so good an imitation of Turkish arrogance, when the envoy appeared in the Audience Room, asked him whether this was indeed his letter, and on the envoy replying “Yes,” he dismissed him with a “Chick Haslagiack—Be gone, you Rogue, you deserve to be hangd’!” One would think, says Sir John, that this “studyd’ affront” might give a stop to the negotiations. But such was not the case: “the Visir learnes dayly, that He looses nothing by the rough treatment of forreign Ministers; as the Ambassadour of Poland’s ill usage, as well as others have confirmd’ to him.”[232]

Take, for instance, that other great Empire, which, calling itself (Heaven only knows why) “Holy” and “Roman,” claimed to be the bulwark of the Christian West.

The Emperor’s Internuncio Hoffmann, since the previous summer when he arrived to renew the truce, had been accorded only one business audience and that was little to his satisfaction: a circumstance from which it might, Sir John thought, justly be suspected that the Grand Vizir meant to keep him in suspense till he drew the army to the Danube, and then suddenly to clap up a peace with the Muscovites and turn his course upon Hungary. Other circumstances pointed in the same direction. Before he could obtain a second interview, Hoffmann died, and was soon followed to the grave by his successor Terlingo. A little earlier, as we have seen, Kindsberg and Sattler had had their careers cut short by death. So that in fifteen months the Emperor had lost four Ministers. Sir John could not help regarding this mysterious mortality as “a presage of a warr, but,” he adds, “omens then worke upon me when they are accompanyd’ with naturall reasons, and a considerable one is this, that the Turke cannot live without a warr.”[233]

That Sir John, eminently a man of peace though he was, prayed for war, is plain from the eagerness with which he dwells on every symptom of a bellicose intention, from the disappointment with which he notes the absence of any bellicose preparations. Hopeful and despondent by turns, he ends with the sad admission, “Wee are like to have the Gran Signor’s and Visir’s company here, much to the advantage of our commerce but as much to the disquiett of all Ministers here.”

Our Ambassador’s sentiments can easily be understood. For at this time Kara Mustafa, who was always most at ease when he was violent, appears to have indulged his peculiar genius at the expense of foreign Ministers a little too far.

We know already the “avania” brought against the Bailo of Venice. Sir John had since learnt from a person present at the inspection of the Venetian Treasurer’s books after his death, that the sum extorted was not, as he had been told, 45,000, but 85,000 dollars. Now a fresh claim for Customs-duties lay upon the Signoria, and the Vizir threatened that, if a bond for 20,000 dollars was not given him, he would bring the case before the Divan and there condemn the Bailo to more than double that amount and shut him up in the Seven Towers till it was paid: afterwards His Excellency might complain to the Sultan, if he liked. Signor Morosini had no option but to comply. Including the supplementary fleecing by the Vizir’s Kehayah, Treasurer, and Rais Effendi, Sir John reckoned that the operation would come to 40,000 dollars. This treatment made so painful an impression upon the Bailo that he told Finch that he intended, on his return home, to advise the Senate to break off relations with Turkey once for all rather than “be thus eaten up by degrees.”[234]

A new Venetian Ambassador who arrived to relieve the much-tried Morosini was treated like an envoy from a vassal State. The Turks searched the men-of-war that escorted him, and detained them on the plea of having stolen slaves and killed them. Several corpses found floating about the vessels lent colour to the accusation, though the Venetians protested that the corpses came from shipwrecks in the Black Sea. Be that as it may, the affair was finally settled for an amount which no man knew: it was said that both the Vizir and the Bailo wished to keep it private, for, if the Grand Signor heard of it, he would want his share. And so at length the new-comer had his audience. From the Venetians themselves Sir John obtained a graphic account of the function. The Commander of one of the men-of-war told him that, just as he went out of his boat, a ragged Turk stepped up to him and, calling him “Giaour,” gave him a blow with his fist in the nape of the neck, which for some time deprived him of consciousness: and this was done in the presence of the Turkish officers who conducted the Ambassador. The Ambassador’s own son informed Finch that his father sat at a great distance from the Vizir, who, for all welcome, brusquely asked him, “When do your ships depart?” though he very well knew that he was the person who detained them, and throughout the interview looked another way.[235]

Likewise from the Genoese, whose trade with Turkey, since the suppression of the traffic in false coin, was worse than nothing, Kara Mustafa wrung a large sum, though Sir John could not learn how large nor upon what ground. This secrecy annoyed our Ambassador sorely: “I much wonder,” he wrote, “that men endeavour to smother their Avanias whenas I proclaim mine rather by sound of Trumpett not that I hope for Pity, but that our Great Trade might be lesse envious.” However, thus much was certain: Signor Spinola, unable to bear any more bleeding, asked that he might be allowed to ship off his Nation and quit the country; but he was answered that, if he again repeated such an unmannerly motion, he should be clapt into irons. Spinola was presently superseded. But Genoa had to pay fifteen purses before her old Resident was permitted to go away, and as much more before the new one could enter. And that, apparently, was only the beginning of a fresh innovation. Kara Mustafa’s Kehayah gave out that the Vizir intended thenceforward to make every new Resident pay 25,000 dollars, and every new Ambassador double that sum. Further, a high official of the Porte was heard to say that the Vizir expected monthly presents from all foreign Ministers, and that they who forgot their duty should quickly be put in mind that the Vizir was here.[236]

Evidently, success had not made Kara Mustafa milder. The victor of Muscovy could afford to despise Genoa, Venice, and every other Power. But it was upon the tributary and vassal States that he thought himself at liberty to vent the full measure of his greed and ferocity. It was the Ragusans’ obvious interest not to multiply their hostages in the Vizir’s hands. But they could not help themselves: the annual tribute had to be paid. Two new Ambassadors were accordingly sent with it, and added to the number of prisoners. They were thrown into the same “loathsome Dungeon” as the others. “They have been beaten there, stript naked, and threatned Torments.” All the appeals which the Republic addressed to Italy for aid had remained fruitless. “The Pope, who will be concernd’ for Ancona if the Turkes take possession of Ragusi; that City loosing all its Trade and the Casa Santa it selfe being in danger; contributes not an Asper to their relief; Hereticks it seems being in his judgment more dangerous to the Romish Religion then the Turk’s.” As to the Prince of Moldavia, our Ambassador briefly informs us that he had “24 times the Torment for non payment of mony agreed for.”[237]

In this way, to quote Sir John’s phrase, “the Gran Visir thunders amongst us.” The phrase is one of those that make a picture leap to the mind’s eye: the picture of a monster, half-human, half-diabolic, whose voice was thunder and whose gesture lightning. This picture is, of course, over-drawn and over-coloured. But there can be no doubt that it is a faithful enough portrait of Kara Mustafa as he appeared to the contemporary diplomats who had the misfortune to come into contact with him. They all speak of his cruelty, avarice, and cunning in terms of unqualified abhorrence. They all describe him as a creature whose soul was as black as his face, whose heart held not one generous or merciful sentiment, whose appetite for gold was as insatiable as that of a ghoul for blood: a fiend incarnate.[238] In truth (things have become sufficiently remote to be visible in their true perspective) Kara Mustafa, a miscreant of imposing magnitude as he was, was not much more violent, grasping, and unprincipled than the average Grand Vizir:[239] he was only more consistent. His iniquities, historically viewed, are but a memorable instance of the misery which it was in the power of a Turkish Prime Minister to inflict. But men who smarted under his lash could not be expected to see current events in the proportions in which, after the lapse of centuries, they appear to the philosophic historian. “These things,” says Finch, “will appear to others as they doe to me my selfe incredible.” He consoles himself, however, by reflecting that “Res nolunt male administrari—Things mend themselves when they become insupportable.”

Sir John based his hopes of a “mending” on France. A new French Ambassador, M. de Guilleragues, had arrived in the autumn of 1679, with instructions to demand redress for all the wrongs which M. de Nointel had failed to prevent: restoration of the Holy Sepulchre to the Latin Fathers; exemption from the poll-tax for Frenchmen married to country-born women; and, above all, restitution of the Stool upon the Soffah. He was understood to be a man of determination, and he had shown the spirit in which he meant to approach the Porte on his very arrival by refusing to salute the Seraglio as he sailed into the Golden Horn, or to suffer his men-of-war to be searched before they left. In the treatment that awaited M. de Guilleragues the other foreign Ministers would read their own fate. They could not hope, as Finch said, to fare better than the envoy of France, seeing that he possessed two great advantages over everybody else: a large quantity of new presents, and a number of French renegades in high places about the Vizir. Would his advent make the clouds grow lighter, the thunders roll away, and the horizon at length clear up?

The Turks had let the French men-of-war depart unsearched—carrying, it was said, seventy fugitive slaves with them—and otherwise had given the Frenchman a much more respectful reception than the new Venetian and Genoese envoys. This was a good omen; but nothing could be predicted with certainty until M. de Guilleragues had his audience—that would be the real test. Sir John awaited that crucial event with keen interest: but the months passed, and the audience did not take place. As far as he could learn from the Ambassador’s own mouth, as well as from other sources, M. de Guilleragues was making no progress. Kara Mustafa had positively refused to move the Stool: whereupon the Ambassador had refused audience, averring that he must wait for fresh orders from his King. “How this matter will end,” Finch wrote on the 1st of March 1680, “I know not.”

Meanwhile his friend and partner in many good and evil days had left in the vessel that had brought out his successor, making the third colleague gone during the year. Ruined in pocket and reputation, Nointel must still have been an object of envy to Finch: he had, at all events, reached the end of his martyrdom: he was gone home—to Christendom, to civilisation, where Grand Vizirs raged not, nor were gentlemen treated like galley-slaves. Another person, even nearer to Finch, was also just gone: the Honourable Dudley North. He went not ruined in pocket and reputation like Nointel: far from it. He went to enjoy at home, according to plan, the wealth he had piled up abroad, while his brother carried on the prosperous business at Constantinople. North was the third English associate to vanish from Sir John’s circle since the accession of Kara Mustafa. Mr. Paul Rycaut, after seventeen years’ residence in the East, had found himself suddenly “affected with a passionate desire of seeing my owne country,” and forthwith “signifyed as much to the Levant Company, desiring them to send me their favourable dismission, and to supply this office with another Consul.”[240] He retired with the consent of his employers, who expressed their high appreciation of his services. The Rev. John Covel had also resigned his engagement with the Levant Company and “left Stambul, which, for many reasons, I may well liken to the prison of my mother’s belly.”[241]

Lucky, indeed, were all those who could leave a land in which life had become so hard. But Sir John himself would not now be very long. His six years’ contract had expired, and he had informed the Levant Company that he cherished no wish to renew it—nor, we may easily surmise from many hints, was the Company reluctant to dispense with his services. All that he waited for was the appointment of a successor. As to another post, he had put himself in the hands of his brother, the Lord Chancellor, and would acquiesce in whatever was done for him: any seat would be a seat of roses after Stambul.[242]

The waiting was not now so irksome to Sir John as it would have been a year or two ago. It is true that in one of his despatches there occurs a passage tinged with pessimism: “I must,” he wrote towards the end of 1679, “committ all to the Protection of the Almighty, and God direct me in these difficult times in the carrying on His Majesty’s concerns in the commerce of His subjects, which is at this time greater then ever in this place, and by consequence more envious and more exposd.”[243] But this was only a passing mood. In the same despatch he thanked God for not being “strooke” by Kara Mustafa’s thunder; and some months later we even detect in his tone an optimism to which he had long been a stranger: “As to my condition here, I must needs say, that I loose no ground as to the Publick Interest, but advance”[244]—we seem to hear again the complacent, self-satisfied Finch of the pre-Mustafa period. And then, all of a sudden, we hear him asking the Secretary of State to guess how he is “tossd’” by “the present tempestuous Goverment in Turky.”

What had happened?

The curious will find it in the next chapter.