[288] Ibid.
[289] “The Humble Addresse of the Company” “to the King’s most Excelent Majestie and to the Lords of his most Honourable Privy Councill,” dated Oct. 27, 1680, Register (S.P. Levant Company, 145), p. 81. The same Register contains the Company’s and the King’s Instructions to Chandos, the latter dated Dec. 29; the former Jan. 28 (pp. 82-95); copies of the two sets of Credentials, dated Dec. 29 (pp. 95-101); also a supplementary letter from Charles to the Sultan, dated Jan. 24, (pp. 103-4) dealing exclusively with the Pasha of Tunis affair, and demanding “the said Pasha and his false witnesses to be brought to condigne punishment.” In his sterner Letter of Credence, Charles desires the Grand Signor “to make enquiry” into, “besides many other insupportable greivances,” the taking away “of those Imperiall Capitulations which are the onely security of their Trade” and “to doe Justice upon all such as shall be found culpable therein.”
CHAPTER XXI
RELEASE
How Lord Chandos would have acquitted himself of his delicate mission, had he been left to his own resources, it is impossible to say. As it was, the unaccountable Power which, for want of a better term, we call “luck” seconded him beyond his own or any one else’s most sanguine hopes. Just as he arrived on the scene, the strain between France and Turkey ripened to a crisis.
Besides her grievances against the pashas on the Bosphorus, France had many scores to settle with the pirates of Barbary. Louis had put up with their depredations for eight years—so long, that is, as his war against Holland, Denmark, Spain, and Germany tied his hands. But the pacification of the West had set him free for action in the East. The monarch who had humbled all the Powers of Europe would no longer brook humiliation at the hands of the petty principalities of Africa. He decided to deal with them summarily and, at the same time, with their patron in Stambul: the combination, in truth, was unavoidable, for the corsairs were permitted to prey upon the French even in the ports—nay, in the very towns—that lay directly under the Grand Signor’s rule. Only a few months ago the French Consul at Cyprus and a French merchant were carried out of their houses during the night aboard a Tripoli man-of-war, and after being soundly drubbed were forced to ransom themselves. M. de Guilleragues could obtain from the Grand Vizir no satisfaction for this outrage; and the pirates improved the occasion by taking a French ship worth 100,000 dollars as it sailed from Smyrna.[290]
So the famous Admiral Duquesne was sent with a squadron to scour the Mediterranean. His orders were to seek and destroy the pirates wheresoever he found them. After sweeping everything before him farther west, Duquesne entered the Archipelago. The Grand Signor’s Capitan Pasha met him with his Fleet and asked what he came into these seas for. The Frenchman quoted his orders. “Nay,” said the Turk, “the Grand Signor will never allow the Tripolines to be attacked in his own ports.” “We shall see about that,” replied Duquesne, and made for Chios, where four Tripoli men-of-war and four petaches lay careening with their guns all ashore. The Admiral sailed into the port (July 13, 1681) and, without any ceremony, went for the disarmed pirates. They fled into the Grand Signor’s Castle, which fired two guns. Duquesne retorted with thirty, and a message that, if the Grand Signor’s Castle protected them, he would knock it down about the ears of the Grand Signor’s garrison. The Turks, terrified, desisted from further acts of hostility, turned the Tripolines out, and sent word to the Admiral that they would remain neutral. Duquesne then set to work: in four hours, and at the expense of 8000 shots, he disabled the Tripoline vessels (how he managed not to destroy them does not appear), slaying about 300 of their crews and, incidentally, doing some damage to the town. Some of his shots battered down several buildings, among them a minaret, and killed some of the inhabitants. Whereupon loud uproar in Stambul: it was the greatest affront the Ottoman Empire had ever received since its foundation! Rumour added that Duquesne had sailed to the Dardanelles, whence he had addressed, through the Turkish commander of the Castles at the Straits, a message to the Vizir demanding to know how the French Ambassador would be treated as to the Soffah and stating that he would shape his conduct accordingly! Cause enough for uproar.
At the Porte all is confusion. Councils are held in quick succession; orders are despatched to the Capitan Pasha to put his Fleet in a place of safety; couriers fly in different directions on secret errands. Until their return, what steps Kara Mustafa will take, no man can tell, he least of all.
Among the French residents all is consternation. M. de Guilleragues, after repeated demands and denials, had only a week before obtained leave for his wife and daughter to depart on the plea of ill-health: now, fearing lest the Porte should cancel the permission, he hastens to send them away; but he is not quick enough: the vessel has fallen down the Sea of Marmara some leagues, the ladies are on the very point of following in a boat, when a peremptory command from the Vizir stops them and compels the vessel to turn back. Simultaneously the Ambassador is summoned to give an account of what was done at Chios; but before he has set out, a countermand comes, ordering him to hold himself ready for another summons. While waiting for this summons, M. de Guilleragues gives out that, when he appears before the Vizir, he will not utter one word, unless he has his seat on the Soffah: he will only hand to him the King’s letters—which all these months still remain undelivered—and, let him do his worst, Kara Mustafa shall have no other answer. Very fine—but the French merchants, in great alarm, apply to the various foreign Ministers to save the best of their effects.