The new Grand Vizir began his career after a fashion which justified Sir John’s best hopes. He removed no Minister from his post, except the Kehayah, a necessary measure, and he softened it by making him Master of the Horse to the Sultan: a place which, if less profitable, was not less honourable. Neither did he put any man to death, except a paymaster, and that was an act of justice rather than of severity, for the official had been convicted of paying out false money. In brief, Ahmed’s death did not seem to have produced any change at the Porte other than the change of the Vizir’s person. Sir John felt reassured: much as he missed the suave Kehayah, he was glad to know that he still occupied a position of influence; and that, apart from this alteration, he would not have “to begin his Interest anew.” As late as the first of March 1677 he was able to write: “Both with the Court it selfe and the Publick Ministers that reside Here, things passe with me so peaceably that I am in a perfect calme.” Indeed, the Government was so “regular,” that, in the dearth of “occurrences of remarque,” the Ambassador could scarcely find “materialls enough to furnish a Dispatch.”[187]
For the fact is that Kara Mustafa was to be six months a Grand Vizir before anything happened. But what then happened was in itself a drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[173] See [Appendix XII].
[174] Finch to Coventry, May 26: S.V. 1677. See also [Appendix XIII].
[175] Such was the mournful reflection of a contemporary merchant who, after doing the “Nation” a great service at Constantinople, got not “common thanks and scarce good looks” for his pains. See Life of Dudley North, p. 102.
[176] Richard Pococke, who visited Smyrna in 1739, notes: “they export a great quantity of raisins to England, under the pretence of a privilege they have by our Capitulations of loading so many ships for the King’s table.”—A Description of the East (London: 1745), Bk. II. ch. i.
[177] Finch to Coventry, May 4-14, Coventry Papers; the Same to Right Hon. [Joseph Williamson], May 31: S.V. 1676, S.P. Turkey, 19.
[178] Covel’s Diaries, pp. 163-8.