M. de Guilleragues, after defying the Grand Vizir for eighteen months, had resolved to force a decision—as he might have said, brusquer un dénouement. Letters from his King had reached him for the Grand Signor and the Grand Vizir. In these letters Louis disavowed M. de Nointel’s surrender, demanded audience for his Ambassador on the Soffah, declaring that he would not be satisfied with less, and, in case of refusal, requested leave for him to return home. Guilleragues informed Kara Mustafa through his Dragoman of the arrival of these letters and said that, if the Vizir would not give him audience on the Soffah, he would not present them in person, but deliver them through his Secretary. The Vizir answered that he could not grant the Soffah; and as to the Secretary, he would not do the Grand Signor and His Majesty of France the disrespect to receive Royal letters by other hands than those of the Ambassador. This passage of arms had taken place in March, while Kara Mustafa’s position was still shaken;[283] and Guilleragues was so confident of victory that he put himself to the expense of rigging out his attendants in new rich liveries, and made many of his gentlemen provide costly clothes for the Audience. But all his thrusts were skilfully parried by Kara Mustafa, who now brought the duel to a halt by telling Guilleragues that, “If he would have audience, he must receive it as the other Ministers had done, or be gone.”[284] There was a deadlock.
The whole of Constantinople, from both banks of the Golden Horn, watched this queer combat for a foot-high eminence with breathless interest: Stambul gnashing its teeth at the Giaour’s unheard-of impudence; Pera rejoicing, as openly as it dared, at his prowess. For the Soffah was a symbol. To the Turks it typified their superiority, to the Franks their abasement. Therefore all Franks, irrespective of nationality, saw in M. de Guilleragues their gallant champion. Like a paladin of olden times he stood forth as a defender of Christendom and its dignity against the arrogant hosts of Islam. In fighting for the Soffah, the Ambassador of France fought the battle of Europe. The anxiety was universal; but no one felt more anxious than Sir John Finch. To him the recrudescence of Kara Mustafa’s obduracy was of ill augury for his own affairs: “Methink’s,” he wrote with reference to the Pasha of Tunis case, “the Visir should be enclind’ to something of Temper in this Concern.”[285]
In the midst of these melodramatic doings, news came that Lord Chandos had reached Smyrna in the Oxford. Immediately Finch sent a special messenger to inform him of the Rais Effendi’s mysterious overtures and to ask for guidance in the matter without delay. “The noble Lord’s answer from thence was that he was hastening all he could to communicate to me His Majesty’s Commands and the Company’s Instructions, adding that he feard’ our latitude was not great on the submissive part.”[286] On receipt of this reply, Sir John notified the Rais Effendi that his successor was at Smyrna and that he hourly expected him at Pera: the pulling of the Pasha’s beard would have to be put off for a while. That and all other operations henceforth passed out of his hands.
For the first time after many years Sir John felt able to breathe. But patience to a man in a state of suspense is difficult. He counted the days, the hours, he consulted the weather prophets: it was the time of year when the Etesian winds setting N.E. rendered navigation in that corner of the Mediterranean exceedingly slow. The ship, faced by a thousand snares of sea and land, had to struggle along the Asia Minor coast, continually tacking and taking careful soundings, frequently casting and weighing anchor, and casting it again—now before Mytilene, now before Tenedos, until after a whole week’s voyage from Smyrna it reached Gallipoli—there to meet the millrace of the Dardanelles. So fierce was the current in that season and, owing to the tortuous nature of the channel, so dangerous, that ships had to wait at the mouth of the Hellespont for the wind to change before they could even enter the Straits. Sometimes they had to wait so long that, it is said, in Byzantine times, the corn which was transported from Egypt to Constantinople rotted on board. Sir John could not wait: “I long for dispatch, all delay being a just ground (if any can be so) of impatience.”[287] The moment he heard that the Oxford had arrived at Gallipoli, he sent thither a brigantine with twenty oars and four boats to expedite the last stage of Lord Chandos’s journey. His Lordship, no less sensible of the need of dispatch, promptly left the Oxford at Gallipoli and with a few servants performed the last 125 miles in the brigantine, landing at Constantinople incognito on Friday, July 22nd, “to my no small joy.”[288]
Of course, Sir John could not get away at once. The Pasha of Tunis’s beard had to be pulled first. Until that operation was over, he was practically a prisoner. But he relied on Lord Chandos to release him from captivity.
The new Ambassador came armed with a double set of Letters of Credence from the King, two addressed to the Grand Signor and two to the Grand Vizir: the one set was couched in milder, the other in sterner terms; and his instructions were to present the one or the other, as he should think most suitable to the actual posture of affairs and most likely to achieve the end in view—namely, security for the present, guarantees for the future, and, if possible, reparation for the past: all this had to be managed with due regard to “the frowardness of the present Ministers and the state of a fixed and Radicated Tyranny.” Courage tempered by circumspection was the word. But a postscript to his Instructions, dictated by the Levant Company, empowered the Ambassador, in case “the Vizier doth persist in his great oppressions upon Our Subjects,” to acquaint him (and the Grand Signor, too, if need be) that he would only remain at the Porte until he should receive final directions from home “how to dispose of Our Subjects and their Trade for the future.”[289] This, translated into plain language, amounted to a threat of a rupture of relations.
Long has the Majesty of England suffered insult and injury meekly. But now it would seem meekness had reached its uttermost limit: an august Monarch, a Most Honourable Privy Council—nay, a Company of timorous traders itself—in their despair, had taken to a new course: we were to make a solemn final remonstrance and appeal for justice; failing which, we were to fling down the wet and worthless piece of parchment at the Grand Signor’s feet, and depart shaking the dust of his dominions off ours—or, perhaps, not to depart, but to stay on under entirely new conditions: our ambassadors unaffronted, our merchants going to market sure that they shall come back unplundered? or, horrible thought! to fall once more under the yoke, our remonstrances and veiled menaces alike ending—in smoke?
FOOTNOTES:
[276] When Governor of Erzerum, he had by his oppression driven the inhabitants to complain to the Sultan. Ahmed Kuprili shielded him as a kinsman: so the fault was laid upon the Governor’s Kehayah, who lost his head, while Kara Mustafa lost only his post. See Finch to Coventry, inclosure in despatch of May 26, S.V. 1677, Coventry Papers.
[277] Finch to Sunderland, Dec. 3-13, 1680, S.P. Turkey, 19.