Under these conditions the poor Ambassador’s patience and temper broke down utterly. For weeks he had waited weary and dissatisfied with everything and everybody: not knowing what to trust to after so many disappointments, or where to lay the fault, whether in the incapacity of his Dragomans or the insufficiency of his own diplomacy. In this uncertain and perplexed state, often abused and deceived by the men who professed to be his friends, Sir John had possessed his soul. He could possess it no longer. One day his feelings burst through all restraint and leapt from his lips. He railed against the Dragomans, blaming them for all the delays and vowing that, if in forty-eight hours he had no categorical answer as to when his business should be done, or where it had stuck, he would apply to the Grand Vizir through Dr. Mavrocordato, or himself go to the Kehayah without them. This explosion braced up Signor Giorgio and Signor Antonio to fresh efforts, and about three days after they brought Sir John word that all was arranged: next Friday, please God, his Excellency would have his farewell audience of the Grand Vizir and receive from his hands the new Capitulations as well as the Grand Signor’s and his own answers to the King’s letters.[157]
A little psychological essay would not be out of place here. The English of that day attributed the Porte’s dilatoriness to sheer indolence intensified by debauchery. They noted that, since Ahmed Kuprili had espoused the bottle, State affairs had suffered as much as his health, “soe that all business which must pass the Vizir is done with great disadvantage and after many delays.”[158] That was true; but perhaps it was not the whole truth. In the first place, we know that the Turks had been offended by Sir John’s delay in coming to present his Credentials, and we may surmise that they paid inertness for inertness. This so far as the Vizir’s subordinates are concerned. As to the Vizir himself, Ahmed may have been above petty pique; but Ahmed, as the Rev. John described him, as everybody who had dealings with him said, was “a subtle cunning man.”[159] All his actions and inactions were premeditated, all his steps were measured, all his words were carefully weighed. The whole of his life was nothing but a part which he played with that consummate astuteness, dissimulation, and suppleness of mind which mark the born diplomat. He knew human nature, and he had apparently gauged pretty accurately Sir John’s nature. The Ambassador, the Vizir reasoned, if he only made his sojourn long enough and disagreeable enough, would get impatient to return to his comfortable home at Pera, and would waive points that he might otherwise have insisted upon. All he had to do was to wear him out by a process of procrastination. For the rest, Ahmed had tried exactly the same system a few years before in the same place on another highly-strung Frank, the Marquis de Nointel, with complete success. That he was no less successful now can easily be shown.
Just as things had reached that point, there arrived from Smyrna an express courier with a letter from Consul Rycaut. It was signed by all the English merchants, who prayed his Excellency to protect them against an administrative innovation that threatened their interests and privileges. In different circumstances, Sir John would have turned every stone: as it was, he did not even acknowledge receipt of the complaint.[160] The same lassitude and anxiety to shake the dust of Adrianople from off his feet were manifest in what follows.
On the Thursday before the Friday fixed for his farewell audience, Signor Antonio Perone went to the Kehayah to see if the appointment held. He found that the appointment stood good, but that—the Capitulations lacked the Grand Signor’s autograph (Hattisherif). To his protest the Kehayah blandly replied that, as the Venetians, the French, and the Dutch were content to do without the Imperial autograph, there was no need for it. The Dragoman insisted; but all the answer he obtained was, Olmaz—it could not be! Thereupon, without going back to the Ambassador for instructions, he ran straight to the Rais Effendi and besought his help. The Rais Effendi also said, Olmaz: the Grand Vizir had decided that there should be no Imperial autograph—only the Imperial cipher. It was no use pressing him: he knew the Vizir to be a man who never changed his mind. Signor Antonio returned to the Kehayah and implored him so earnestly that at last he got him to write to the Vizir’s Muhurdar, or Keeper of the privy seal, and ask him to approach his master on the subject. But the Muhurdar also declined to interfere. The Dragoman, at his wits’ end, ran and fetched the old Capitulations, as renewed by Lord Winchilsea, and, laying them before the Kehayah, showed him the Grand Signor’s handwriting upon them: here is the precedent, he said, and pointed out what an unreasonable thing it was that the new Charter should want the force of the old. In the end the Kehayah unbent so far as to send a Memorial to the Grand Vizir, and by and by informed Signor Antonio that the thing was as good as done: “Give the Ambassador my salaams,” he said, “and tell him that I hope to get everything ready in a few days more: you may say three to the Ambassador, but I doubt not that I shall have it done in two.” Meanwhile, the audience, naturally, was postponed.
The news was calculated to perturb a nature much less combustible than Sir John’s. No language could express his rage and despair. He was furious—furious with the Kehayah and Rais Effendi for not informing him of the hitch sooner, but at the eleventh hour putting him off; even more furious with the Dragoman for having insisted on the Hattisherif! Rather than wait another day, Finch would have gone without, thinking it enough that the other Europeans had none, and forgetting how it must have reflected on his diplomatic dexterity to lose an advantage his predecessors had secured—and one, too, “whereof,” says Dudley North, “we had swaggered and gloried so much!” So efficacious was Ahmed’s system for dealing with ambassadors. Luckily, there was our Treasurer to prevent mischief. In him both the Vizir and the Ambassador had found their match. To Ahmed’s impassivity North opposed his tireless perseverance, and to Sir John’s febrile impatience his imperturbable phlegm. Often, disapproving of his Excellency’s orders to the Dragomans, he countermanded them behind his back, and now he defeated his insane inclination to play into Kuprili’s hand: all the time managing Finch’s pride by an attitude of absolute submissiveness.[161] North had a sense of humour.
“In two days,” had said the Kehayah. But many more than two days pass, and the thing is not yet done. The Dragomans are at their old trade of soliciting for dispatch, prodded on by the Treasurer. Sometimes they find the Kehayah arguing against the necessity of having the Grand Signor’s autograph, but he always ends by telling them that they will have it. One day he says that the Capitulations are in the hands of the Vizir’s Muhurdar, waiting to be presented to the Grand Signor with several other documents as soon as the signing-time should arrive. Thereupon Sir John orders four vests to be sent to the Muhurdar.
At length, the Turks having exhausted the possibilities of delay, news comes that the Grand Signor has signed the Capitulations and that his Excellency should be ready to receive them from the Grand Vizir’s hands on Wednesday, the 8th of September, at three in the afternoon.
Of a truth, the long-promised will now be done!
Sir John, in his eagerness, went too soon and had to wait in the Kehayah’s apartment till prayers were over. Coffee and sherbet were served, while Dr. Mavrocordato, like Finch a medical graduate of Padua, entertained him with light talk about the Plague—no topic could be more topical: in that very apartment there were many sick Turks. After a time Ambassador and suite were conducted into the Vizir’s room. Ahmed’s face, especially about the eyes, looked bloated. The guests understood that the Vizir had had as much as he could carry the night before. Yet he was in very good humour. “He vested eleven of my Retinue, besides my selfe: my Druggerman informing me that my Predecessor had none at all, and that usually besides the Ambassadour but one was vested who was thought to be Him who was to carry the Gran Signor’s Letters to the King. Thus the Vizir and I setting downe after welcome given me, in the first place He gives me with His owne Hands (which He did not to the French Ambassadour) the Capitulations.”[162]
No bond could be more binding. It secures to the English all their privileges “so long as Charles the Second King of England (whose end may it terminate in Happynesse) maintains good friendship and corrispondence with Us,” and it concludes with a solemn oath to this effect: “Wee swear and promise by Him that has created the Heaven and the Earth and all creatures: By that Creator, the One God, Wee do promise, that nothing shall be done contrary to this Imperiall Capitulation.” There follows the name of the Sultan “in a knott of Great Letters”—and the famous autograph: “Lett every thing be observd’ in conformity to this Our Imperiall Command, and contrary to it lett nothing be done.” So much concerning the form; as to substance, besides the additional articles already familiar to the reader, the Charter contains a surprise: “There passing good corrispondence between Us and the King of England, out of regard of this good friendship, Wee doe grant that two ships lading of Figgs, Raisins, or Currants, may be yearly exported for the use of His Majesty’s kitchin.”[163]