[169] Finch to Coventry, Oct. 6-16, 1675.
[170] Covel’s Diaries, pp. 274-5.
[171] Finch to Coventry, Oct. 6-16, 1675.
[172] Winchilsea “Intelligence,” Aug. 24 [1661]; Harvey to Arlington, Jan. 31, 1669 [-70], S.P. Turkey, 17 and 19.
CHAPTER XII
HALCYON DAYS
The Plague over, Sir John resumed his quiet life at Pera; and for the space of a twelvemonth we find him resting on his laurels and garnering the fruits of his labour complacently.
He had, indeed, much cause for complacency. Our Levant Trade flourished as never before, and the Constantinople Factors were guilty of no exaggeration when they told the Ambassador that it was twice, if not thrice, bigger than the trade of all other European nations put together. Sir John took the keenest interest in this progress and foresaw even greater development at the expense of our rivals, if only we would sell on credit, as they did, and if we could keep the privileges secured by the new Capitulations in force. As to the first point, the Ambassador’s exhortations fell on deaf ears. The Levant Company had a rooted objection to the credit system, being on the contrary persuaded that the growth of their business was due to the prohibition of “Trusting” which they had enacted a few years before.[173]
Nor did the home authorities sufficiently appreciate the Ambassador’s services with regard to the Capitulations. As so often happens, the giver and the recipient differed widely about the value of the gift. Indeed, the Levant Company’s attitude in this matter was so ungracious and ungrateful that Sir John, stung to the quick, wrote to the Secretary of State: “Lett them make the Service as mean as they please now they are in possession of it; were the new Articles I obtaind, to be again procurd’, I very well know at what rate they would be content to purchase them. Neither in the estimate of their advantage which I sent your Honour, did I write any thing more, then what fell from the Merchants mouths here, before I had obtaind them. But it may be tis esteemd’ by some a good Method, to depretiate that Merit, which being ownd’; would become an obligation, and begett the incumbence of an acknowledgment.”[174] Like others before him, and after him, Sir John had to learn the lesson that “He who serves a community must secure a reward by his own means, or expect it from God.”[175]