As dawn spread her saffron twilight over the Bay of Smyrna, two French ships sailed in: they came from Marseilles, bringing, among other things, many letters for the English Factory. The Hunter did not salute them. And M. de Nointel retaliated by detaining the English letters. Let it be said at once that this fresh neglect had nothing of human design in it: it was a pure accident—solely the work of the mischievous goddess aforesaid. The commander of the Hunter, in Sir John’s own words, “having bin merry over night, was not so early in the morning fitted either for ceremony or buisenesse.” Mr. Rycaut, after reprimanding him very severely, sent to the French Consul his excuses, protesting that what seemed a deliberate affront was really done without order and was due entirely to the fact that Captain Parker had passed the night ashore—folk at all acquainted with the traditions of Smyrna did not need to be told more. He begged that the letters might be delivered. But our candid apology met with a worse response than it deserved. The French Consul, in a mighty passion and with much noise, cried out that his Ambassador was highly offended with Mr. Rycaut, that he regarded both him and his Nation as enemies, and that his Excellency was resolved not only to keep those letters, but also to give orders at Marseilles to throw overboard all English despatches that should be consigned to French vessels.
This was surely hitting below the belt: this was degrading a stately duel to the level of a sordid business squabble. Not thus did Mr. Rycaut understand the law of retaliation. He sent his passionate colleague word that this was more than the English in time of war did to their foes; but it mattered not: every day the Smyrna factors expected English ships which would bring them copies of their letters, and also many letters for the French, which he would deliver, notwithstanding the detention of ours. But both this and several subsequent applications remained fruitless: the English mail was kept from the 2nd of January until the 8th of February, to the great prejudice of the whole Levant Company and to the scandalisation of all disinterested foreigners who, looking upon letters as the life of trade, pronounced the interception of them an act unfriendly and all the more unpardonable since the Dutch, who were actually at war with France, had their mail duly delivered to them. Meanwhile Mr. Rycaut makes another effort “to moderate,” as he says, “the heat of contests, not knowing how farre they may proceed nor in what point they may terminate.” Two English ships, the William and John and the Bonaventure, as they came into port, saluted, by order of their Consul, the French man-of-war; but they received no return of the compliment by express order from the French Ambassador. So pass the days; and one’s hopes of reconciliation are baulked; and Eris goes on adding fuel to the flame....
The French then, as now, were governed by their hearts more than by their heads. But, in the present instance, they were not prompted wholly by wounded amour propre. Their vindictiveness had its roots somewhat deeper. Just before M. de Nointel’s arrival at Smyrna a French manufacturer of spurious dollars had been detected by an interpreter of the English Embassy who had had a number of such coins foisted upon him, and through Mr. Rycaut’s exertions had been caught in the act and committed to the French Consul’s prison, whence, however, he was soon after released. In the same way, during the last year, two or three other French coiners had been exposed and allowed to escape, the French authorities, in order to save the face of their Nation, smothering the crime and spiriting away the criminals. The English, however, whose business suffered by the circulation of false money, considered it a vital interest to bring the culprits to book, and Mr. Rycaut, despite the rejection of his apologies, lodged a vigorous protest with the French Ambassador against the release of that offender. M. de Nointel, in a very short and very sharp reply, characterised the Consul’s Memorial as “ripiena di falsità”—“full of falsehood”—denouncing the English factors as abettors of the forgeries, and declaring that he would demand from their Ambassador reparation for the “calumny.” This scurrilous reply inflamed the whole English colony. In a petition to Sir John Finch they indignantly repudiated Nointel’s aspersion—“an accusation of this nature, given under the handwriting of an Ambassador,” they said, “carry’s force of beliefe and weight and authority in it selfe”: what would the Levant Company think of them: what would be the impression upon their principals, “and perhaps some of our Relations at home?” Therefore, they concluded, “Wee most humbly beseech Your Excellency to take this matter into your serious consideration, that in some publick manner the ancient repute of our Nation may be justify’d and maintaind’, and that this occasion may be so improved by a strict examination of this affayr as may wholely discover and disappoint the farther progress of false coyners by the punishment of whom others taking example may be deterr’d.”[74]
Here was a pretty state of things for a diplomat anxious to consolidate the Anglo-French alliance. But diplomacy is nothing if not the application of intelligence and tact to the management of international susceptibilities. Sir John could not believe that M. de Nointel would push matters so far as to make accommodation impossible. Their correspondence had hitherto been marked by a friendliness which he hoped a personal interview would not diminish. Certainly he intended to do all that in him lay to preserve a good understanding with the impetuous Frenchman. At the same time, he was not prepared to sacrifice one jot of his dignity. “If He comes in Person to make me a Visit as Ambassadours of long Residence, are obligd’ to them that come after them;” he wrote to the Secretary of State, “Our Intercourse will not easily breake off; But if by the returning newly from a long Journy, He hopes, or designs, to evade that Act of respect due to my character; His Majesty’s Honour will never permitt us to meet. But,” he added, “the Prudence of His Excellency conversant with buisenesse; will I presume never putt me upon that necessity.”
A few days afterwards M. de Nointel arrived at Constantinople,[75] and immediately Sir John sent his Secretary to inform him of a fact with which the Marquis was already perfectly well acquainted: namely, that he had come here, whilst Nointel was touring, as English Ambassador to the Porte, and to congratulate him on his safe return to his accustomed residence: so there could be no doubt which of the two was the new-comer and entitled to the first visit. Very politely Nointel, within half-an-hour, sent his Secretary to tell Finch that it was that Secretary’s fault that he had been forestalled, adding that he desired very close relations with him. Finch thanked the Marquis, assuring him that, on his own part, nothing would be wanting to promote such relations, “since that, there passing between both the Kings our Masters a friendship of most entire confidence, t’ would be scandalous in the face of the world for their Ministers to admitt of a conversation that had anything repugnant to intimacy.” Would the noble Marquis take the hint? Desire for cordiality battled with sense of dignity in Sir John’s bosom, filling it with tremulous speculation: “When He has made me a visit, as according to His obligation He is bound, and His Secretary tells me He designs; I shall then see upon what Basis our conversation is like to be built. I have reason to believe, if once wee meet, that all the past misunderstandings will be rectifyd’ and redressd.” But would they meet? Would the noble Marquis be reasonable enough to pay the first visit?
For about a fortnight this question racked the bosom of Sir John. During that fortnight the Carnival ended and Lent began. M. de Nointel, a good Catholic, sent to Sir John “for some white Herrings.” Sir John gave his Excellency not only herrings, but “all the sorts of our English salt fish” that were to be found among our factors at Galata. Not to be outdone in generosity, his Excellency “made a return of a Doz: bottles of Vin de St Laurens and a Barell of Cyprus Birds”—a veritable Trojan of a Frenchman this: rare wines and birds for white herrings. It augured well. Better still, at the end of the fortnight M. de Nointel’s Chief Dragoman made Sir John “a very large complement in his Name; and the Visit is appointed at three of the clock this afternoon.”
Sir John, you see, and from this you may gauge his trepidation, rushed to his escritoire and picked up his quill the moment the Dragoman was gone: he could not wait until the visit was over to let the Secretary of State know how it went off: he must needs relieve his heart by pouring out what was in it: “When I receive him, this being the first time wee have seen each other, I shall give a fayr guesse how affayrs are like to proceed between us.” It would all depend on the Marquis’s manners and pretensions: he would have measure for measure: neither more nor less: “This, Sir, you may be assurd’ of, I shall not part with the least puntiglio of the King’s Honour, or the Publick Interest. And I am halfe perswaded He will decline the trespassing against either, for I hear that He is a Prudent, and Good Naturd’ Gentleman, but how he comes to be misled by false informations I know not.”
The momentous interview took place on the 24th of February 1675. It lasted three hours—three hours spent mostly “in Expostulations upon the mutuall dissatisfactions receivd’ and given.” Item was set against item, in the usual debit-and-credit style, so that it might be ascertained on whose side lay the balance of offence. And now it transpired that, after all their neglects at his entrance into Smyrna, our factors had inflicted upon M. de Nointel an affront of a peculiarly exasperating nature. It was this: one fine day, as the noble Marquis was passing by the sea-shore, he espied on a gallery that overlooked the sea three or four of those blades. Did they salute him? Far from it: the moment they saw him, they set their hats fast upon their heads, lest peradventure the wind should blow them off and the accident be construed into a salute, and then sat still with their arms “a kimbow.” Stifling his wrath, the Marquis tried a ruse, by ordering those of his retinue who followed close behind him to salute first, which was accordingly done; but it worked nothing: the young Englishmen kept their original posture, for all the world as if they were not aware of his Excellency’s existence. What had Sir John to set against this piece of cool effrontery? Sir John rose to the occasion: “As to the unmannerly young men; I could not but confesse That it was high rudenesse”; but when he was at Smyrna he passed, not once but several times, under the French Consul’s gallery without his taking any notice of him: “And this was done by a Magistrate in goverment who should know and practise more Civility.” Having thus beaten back the attack, Sir John proceeded to carry the war into the enemy’s territory: “I told Him He must now Give me Leave to Instance in Two things which I had reason to beleive He could not Parallel.” The first was the detention of the English mail, the second the aspersion on the English factors’ character. Nointel answered the first by explaining that it was done upon the petition of the French Captains whom the Hunter had omitted to salute, but it was only a temporary delay: the letters were delivered after his departure. As to his accusation of our factors, he confessed that he had been provoked to it by Mr. Rycaut’s assertion that the French coiner had paid to one of Sir John’s interpreters “35 false Dollars, which in Truth were but five.”
Enough has been said to show that in this combat of wits, which was continued for three more hours on Sir John’s return visit three days later, the French Marquis found more than his match in the English Knight. On this, as on other occasions of the same kind, Finch proved, to the satisfaction of any impartial critic, that he had inherited a sufficient share of his family’s forensic talent. It is pleasant to hear that the combat was conducted on both sides “with patience, mutuall deference, and reciprocall respect.” It ended as it ought. “I thought it most proper,” says Sir John, “that they who had first divided us, should make the first step towards the uniting us. And therefore I propounded that the French Consul meeting our Consul at Smyrna in the usuall walke of the Cappuchin’s Garden; Should Be the First to addresse Himselfe to our Consul Telling Him That He had orders from His Ambassadour to endeavour to begett a mutuall good understanding between themselves and the reciprocall Nations; which passe being made, our Consul is to reply That He has the same orders from me.” The proposal, after some hesitation, was accepted, and the incident closed, to Sir John’s no small content with himself and with his French colleague: “I cannot but say That the character I formerly gave His Excellency is fully made good by Him; of being a Gentleman of Great Prudence and Civility.”[76]