Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681

by G. F. Abbott

Sir John had not been ignorant of Nointel’s overtures to the Porte, nor was he unaware of the fact that, after the Frenchman’s capitulation, his own position would be much worse. Yet what could he do? To forestall Nointel by submitting first would have been too great a degradation, and would have afforded the French Ambassador a warrantable excuse for transferring the whole responsibility for his own submission upon Finch’s shoulders. In this dilemma, our Ambassador displayed his noted talent for expedients. He ordered his Dragomans to tell the Vizir’s Kehayah that he had received instructions from the King of England to thank the Grand Signor by the Vizir’s mouth for a favour (meaning the Smyrna figs, though he did not say so), and that he was ready at any time to wait upon his Excellency, if the Grand Vizir would be pleased to receive him “with any distinction from the lowest Minister of the meanest Prince.” But in vain: Nointel’s pliancy had stiffened Kara Mustafa’s back. So Sir John acquiesced in his destiny, and again let the Frenchman proceed first. The day after Nointel’s surrender, he applied for audience without reservations or conditions. He received a patronising reply, that his “Motion was very good”; but the Vizir was so taken up with the Polish Treaty that he could not at present appoint a day. Several times, during the next three months, Sir John repeated his “motion,” and every time he met with the same evasive answer.

For the first time since his strategic retreat to his bedroom Sir John doubted the wisdom of that step. Even now he did not regret the deed itself—that was worthily done. Any other conduct would have been inconsistent with punctilious care for the honour of the King his master. Sir John tried to fortify himself with these thoughts. But as week after week came and went, and still there was no invitation to audience, he could not but feel that a deed which is right in principle may be pernicious in its consequences. At length, beginning to grow seriously anxious, he begged his very good friend Hussein Aga to find out the real origin of these delays. The Chief Customer sent back word that there was not the least “disgusto” against him at Court: the Polish Treaty really took up all the Vizir’s time, and he would have his audience in due course and with due honour—that was the whole truth of the matter “upon his head.” This reassuring message allayed Sir John’s anxiety, till—let Sir John himself speak—“till an unpreventable accident disorderd’ and discomposd’ all things and incensd’ the Visir so much that He satisfyd’ his passion upon me.”[194]

The accident deserves to be related at some length; for, besides the effect it had upon our Ambassador’s fortunes, it illustrates very vividly, if not very pleasantly, the manners of the times and the morals of the men involved.

An English merchant of Smyrna had lent to a Venetian native of Candia, called Pizzamano, 3000 dollars, and received some goods as security. After the merchant’s death, his partner, Mr. John Ashby, who at the time of the deal was away, found this pledge among the assets of the deceased, and also found that, in the interval, Pizzamano had gone bankrupt and was hiding from his creditors. Although the term of the loan had not yet expired, Mr. Ashby, fearing no trouble from a man who was unable to show his face, proceeded to sell the goods at the Consul’s gate, in the usual Frank fashion, “by inch of candle.”[195] Besides being premature, the proceeding was irregular in other respects. Turkish law did not recognise a sale at the Consul’s gate by inch of candle, but ordained that all auctions should be held in the market-place, by leave of the Cadi, and after three days’ public notice. Further, it must be observed that Mr. Rycaut, in sanctioning the sale, had exceeded his powers: an English Consul’s jurisdiction was limited to persons of his own nation, and he had no right to settle an affair between an Englishman and a foreigner.

These grave irregularities gave Pizzamano a chance, when he found that the sale of his goods had yielded not only less than they were worth, but even less than they had been pawned for, to denounce the transaction and to claim compensation. Armed with an authentic copy of the sale, which he had procured from the Cancellaria of the English Consulate, he went up to Constantinople; and there this bankrupt who was regarded as utterly helpless, by a singular piece of luck, found powerful friends in Court. It was one of those odd coincidences that seem to occur in order to show how much more romantic life can be than the wildest fiction. The Venetian, before setting up as a trader, had served as a purser on a French pirate ship which Kara Mustafa, whilst Capitan Pasha, had captured. Now it so happened that among the captives was a French cabin-boy who had found favour in Kara Mustafa’s eyes, turned Turk, and become his Hasnadar or Treasurer. For the sake of old times, the ex-cabin-boy espoused the cause of the ex-purser heartily; several influential Turks, creditors of Pizzamano’s, joined the crew in hopes of being repaid out of the loot; and thus supported, the Venetian appealed for redress to the Vizir as a Candiote and therefore now a subject of the Grand Signor.

The Vizir immediately sent a chaoush to fetch Mr. Ashby up to Constantinople, without notifying the Ambassador, who, according to the Capitulations, should have been informed in order to lend the defendant his assistance. This snub, however, did not prevent Sir John from making Ashby’s quarrel his own. Ashby had been exalted by the Smyrna factors into a popular hero: great numbers of them accompanied him to the capital, “with swords and pistolls”—quite a guard of honour; and he arrived bringing a petition to the Ambassador signed by the Consul and forty members of the Factory, that the expenses of the case should be defrayed out of public funds. To this request Sir John demurred on purely tactical grounds: “fearing that if I had declard’ my sense at first, wee should starve our cause, I told Ashby that it was time enough for my Answer when the thing was brought to a period.” With this reservation, which shows that a man can be at once indiscreet and cautious, Sir John made the defendant an object of his warmest solicitude: the merits of the case seem to have had as little weight with him as with the English colony in general.

At first everything went well. The Grand Vizir, when the litigants appeared before him at the Divan, treated Ashby and his supporters with the utmost indulgence, looking upon them, “as my Druggerman told me, with the same smiling countenance as when he was Chimacham,” and even declining to take notice of an aggravating circumstance brought forward by the plaintiff—namely, that the English factors who had accompanied Ashby to Constantinople had tried on the way to rescue him by force of arms and had actually come to blows with the Turks at Magnesia. Ignoring this charge—which, in itself, might have supplied material for very serious trouble—Kara Mustafa referred the case for trial to the Stamboli Effendi, or Chief Justice of Constantinople, precisely as we desired. On the eve of the trial an attempt was made to settle the dispute out of court. Our friend Hussein Aga undertook the part of arbiter and, after estimating the goods in question by the advice of Turkish and Jewish merchants, he condemned Ashby to pay the Venetian 1600 Lion dollars. But as Ashby would not abide by the arbitration, the matter went before the Judge.

And now, to all the other illegalities mentioned, our countrymen added an offence of a truly shocking nature. Ashby and his abettors, from the Ambassador down, had by this time come to see that a sale of pledged goods to which the owner’s consent could not be proved was indefensible in Turkish law. They, therefore, thought fit to deny the sale, and to affirm that the goods were in esse—an attitude to which they were prompted by the knowledge that the goods could easily be got back from those who had bought them. In vain did Pizzamano produce his copy of the sale, signed and sealed by the English Consul. Mr. Ashby, backed by the Ambassador’s Dragoman and all the Englishmen present, stoutly denied the authenticity of the document. Pizzamano then produced two Turkish witnesses who had assisted at the sale. But these witnesses, not being professional rogues, found themselves unable to answer some questions on matters of detail put to them by the Judge, and the bad impression which their inadequate replies produced was deepened by the vehemence and apparent sincerity with which the English persisted in affirming that the goods had not been sold and would be restored on payment of the debt. The Stamboli Effendi, confounded by this mendacious unanimity, departed from the ordinary Turkish maxim of considering the word of two True Believers worth more than that of a crowd of Infidels, and gave sentence that both litigants should return to Smyrna, the one to receive his money and the other his goods.

So far the English had been guilty only of a crime which, as long as it remained undetected, could not hurt them. From this point they began to commit blunders which were to cost them dearly. Sir John congratulated Mr. Ashby on his victory, but at the same time, knowing its seamy side, strongly advised him to come to an adjustment with the Venetian, who offered to cry quits for 1000 dollars. Ashby, however, would not think of sacrificing an atom of his ill-gotten advantage. And that was not all. Blinded by a false sense of security and by cupidity, he did something that proved fatal. The Grand Vizir’s complaisance and his reference of the dispute to the Stamboli Effendi had been procured in the usual way. At the very outset of this unfortunate business, Sir John had got his friend Hussein Aga to buy off Kara Mustafa’s Hasnadar by a bribe of 500 dollars. This sum had been handed to Dudley North and Mr. Hyet, who deposited it by Hussein’s order in the Custom-House. Soon after obtaining his verdict, Ashby met in the street a servant of Hussein Aga’s who had charge of the 500 dollars, but did not know what they were for. “My master,” he said, “has not yet asked for that money. What am I to do with it?” The merchant’s avarice got the better of his prudence: “Give it back to me,” he said, and carried the dollars away. A day or two later Hussein Aga asked his servant for the money, and on hearing what had happened, sent to Ashby for it. Ashby refused to part with his dollars again. Thereupon the Customer, already piqued by the rejection of his arbitration, lost his temper completely. “He stormd’ like a madman, and swore he would be revengd’ of the whole Nation for this affront.” The Hasnadar was not less enraged at this breach of faith. And the two, seconded by all their friends, revealed to the Grand Vizir the whole plot, telling him how the English Ambassador had, through his Dragoman, deceived the Stamboli Effendi about the sale, and substantiating their damning statements with documentary and other evidence. In great fury Kara Mustafa summoned once more all parties concerned to the Divan, and there and then, without so much as waiting to hear one word in Ashby’s defence, shouted to the Chaoush-bashi: “Take that Giaour to prison, till he has satisfied Pizzamano.”

Let us now leave Mr. Ashby in his dungeon, with an iron collar round his neck and iron manacles on his hands, ruminating on the fruits of fraud aggravated by folly, and see how this “accident” affected his august protector.