At that point, the Ambassador and the Vizir were treated to coffee, sherbet, and perfume; and then Sir John and his gentlemen were clothed with kaftans, or robes of honour—loose garments, shaped like night-gowns and bespangled with large yellow flowers, half-moons, and other decorative devices. The material of which they were made varied according to the rank of the recipient: cloth of gold or silver, or silk with more or less of gold and silver wrought in it. At most audiences such garments were given to the visitors, in return for the many valuable cloaks of cloth, silk, velvet, cloth of gold and silver, which the visitors had to give at all audiences: as the English of the period proverbially said of the Turk: “if he gives you an egg, he will expect at least a pullet for it.”[91]
While refreshments and investments were proceeding, the Ambassador and the Vizir continued their conversation. Sir John dwelt at some length on the steadfast friendship the English nation had shown towards Turkey for nearly a hundred years, laying stress on the fact that during the protracted war for the conquest of Candia, which the Vizir had brought to a happy conclusion, not one Englishman had appeared amongst the numerous Christian volunteers who had assisted the Venetians. Ahmed replied that it was true: he himself was witness to it. Next Finch thanked him for so speedy an audience. Ahmed said it was a time of mirth, great affairs were laid aside for a while, so he had leisure. Finch expressed the wish that it might always be a time of mirth with him, and went on emitting many other compliments, to which he got the briefest of answers—or no answer at all.
Ahmed Kuprili was no great dealer in words. Platitudes, especially when the speaker repeated himself, as Sir John was prone to do, wearied him. But he did not interrupt: he simply did not listen. He sat in the corner of the Soffah, with his hands glued to his knees, and his countenance fixed in a sort of stony composure: hardly did a hair of his beard stir to show that he breathed. He was somewhat short-sighted, which caused him to knit his brows and peer very intently when a stranger entered his presence; but after that one searching look his small eyes, having taken the visitor’s measure, remained resolutely half-closed. Once, and only once, when he said it was a time of mirth, his English guests fancied they saw some shadow of a smile on his lips: so faint that it was hardly perceptible. Thus he sat, dark, remote, silent, and inscrutable, looking at the verbose Frank through half-closed, bored eyes. Such calm, such silence, such hauteur, in any other man, would have been exasperating. As practised by Ahmed Kuprili, they were simply subduing. For even his quietude conveyed somehow a suggestion of latent energy—of strength in reserve. On the present occasion, however, we discern a little relaxation from this glacial grandeur. “He look’t very pleasantly,” says the Rev. John, “and as we were inform’d, with an unusuall sweetnesse; though, at best, I assure you, I thought he had Majesty and State enough in his face all the time.”[92] Sir John describes the Vizir as “in his discourse very free and affable, oftentimes inclining his body towards me, which I am told was not usuall.”[93]
These exceptional tokens of affability emboldened the Ambassador, contrary to the rules and the plain hints given him that this was no time for affairs, to broach the question of Tripoli. As we know, he had already notified to the Vizir the rupture. “Here,” he says, “I renewd’ my complaints desiring him over and above that the Gran Signors owne hand being to that Treaty he would not onely approve of the King my Master’s just vindicating the Right of his Treaty by Arms, but also make his due resentment upon their perfidiousness to his Imperiall Majesty. Answer was made me that he would take nothing ill of the Kings part in that affayr, but that he would seek to remedy what they had offended in, as to their owne score.”[94] Whereupon Ahmed rose to his feet, and with a slight bow to the Ambassador limped out of the room.
The visitors departed carrying away with them a mental picture of an overpowering personality, and sixteen kaftans, which they had the curious taste to appraise. The Ambassador’s was valued at 25 or 30 dollars; those of the Treasurer, Secretary, and Chief Dragoman at about 8 dollars apiece: the Chaplain sold his for 6½ dollars.[95]
All this was most interesting, but it was not business. The interview was an empty formality. Nor could Finch hope for many direct business dealings with the Vizir. It is true that Ahmed Kuprili’s established monopoly of power saved an ambassador a world of trouble. Often the Grand Vizirs were mere ciphers, and the Palace usurped all the functions of the Porte. At such times the Grand Signor’s minions counted for a good deal more than his Ministers. The ambassador, therefore, was obliged to discover those minions and the subterraneous channels which led to them, and, while openly carrying on formal conversations with the Vizir, to conduct real negotiations secretly with the Kislar Aga, or Chief of the Black Eunuchs, and other magnates of the Harem. Again, common Grand Vizirs, even when they had no rival in the Harem, had a master at home. They were generally governed by some old friend, or perhaps a favourite slave, through whose hands the great man’s most momentous affairs passed, and who had such an ascendancy over his mind that he could bring him to accept any proposals he liked. To discover and propitiate this omnipotent adviser was no easy matter. Ahmed had simplified a foreign envoy’s task in this respect also. He never had any favourites, or if he had, he was never governed by them.
But still Turkey was Turkey. The Grand Vizir did not quite correspond to a European Prime Minister. Sir John spoke with awe of “this most great and most important charge; the like to which no age at no time under any Christian prince could ever parallel, either as to grandeur or authority.” In fact, Ahmed, though more accessible than many of his predecessors and successors, being the Grand Signor’s vicar, was only less unapproachable than his master. The way to him lay through his Kehayah, or Steward, and his Rais Effendi, or Chief Secretary. With these officers all preliminary negotiations had to be conducted.
Sir John, already initiated in the rudiments of Turkish procedure, shaped his course accordingly. In consultation with the leading English merchants, he had the new Articles of the Capitulations drawn up, translated into Turkish, and sent by his Dragomans to the Kehayah that he might submit them to the Vizir, after first taking the advice of the Rais Effendi, who had been gained in advance. The Kehayah had received the document very favourably and promised his assistance. That was done as soon as Finch had settled down at Adrianople. Since then nothing more had been heard from the Porte. The Ambassador thought the Pashas should not be allowed to go to sleep. So he despatched his Dragomans, soliciting an answer from those obliging functionaries, but he was put off with the reply that he must wait till the festivities were over.[96]
Alas, poor Ambassador! What maladroit demon had inspired thee to select for business a time of mirth?