Kara Mustafa, at close quarters, appeared somewhat less terrible than Sir John had pictured him at a distance; and, although he did not honour the visitor with any vests, he accorded to him several marks of (shall we say?) respect, which he had denied to the other foreign Ministers. Instead of three hours, he kept him waiting only a quarter of an hour; he permitted all the members of his suite to enter the Audience Chamber; he deigned to drink coffee and sherbet with him; and (greatest condescension of all!), while he had let no ambassador talk for more than seven minutes, and then only about news, he suffered Sir John to go on for over three-quarters of an hour, and (“bating the first Ceremony of Congratulation,” and a few words “of how things passd’ in England”) all about solid business.
Sir John took full advantage of this unexpected amiability. Very adroitly he began with the Smyrna figs and currants: the King his master was infinitely grateful for the favour conferred upon his kitchen; but the benefit was mutual: the Grand Signor’s subjects had already made 130 walled vineyards where there was nothing but stones before, and, if the Vizir was pleased to encourage the trade by enlarging the concession, “gold would grow instead of pebbles”—a million of dollars a year which we now spent in Christendom for fruit would then most probably come to Turkey. The topic was eminently calculated to capture Kara Mustafa’s attention. He asked with interest whether this concession was in the Capitulations; and, on hearing that it was, he said that it would be punctually observed together with the rest of our privileges.
Following up this propitious opening, Finch broached a number of kindred subjects, begging, among other things, that in future no Englishman might be dragged to the Divan by a chaoush for debt, until after his creditors had applied to the Ambassador for satisfaction. He implored the Grand Vizir to consider that the calling of a merchant from his business upon any frivolous or false claim often spelt ruin for the merchant. The Grand Vizir replied that, so long as the English merchants acted with sincerity, they should be protected; but if they acted unjustly and dishonourably, they must answer for their bad actions like other men.
Impartial justice, however, was not quite what the Ambassador wanted. He dwelt on the fact—a fact which, he said, must be well known to “a great captain in warr and a great Minister of State in peace,” such as Kara Mustafa was—that the Porte had never encountered at sea any English ships nor on land any English troops operating against it: a proof positive of the reality of the King’s friendship for the Grand Signor. After all this, it must surely be a subject of great joy to the enemies of the Porte, and a great discouragement to its well-wishers, to see no distinction made between friend and foe, but its best friends treated, if anything, worse than “those that exercise acts of hostility against it.” To this tender appeal, with its covert hit at the French, Kara Mustafa made a suitable answer: “He very well knew our friendship and he had a very great value for it.”
Towards the close of the interview Sir John expressed a hope that he was now entirely in the Grand Vizir’s good graces and that he might henceforth count on his favour and protection, declaring, upon the word of an Ambassador, that, unless assured of it, he was so unwilling to see the ancient friendship between England and Turkey grow cold on his account, that he would immediately write and ask the King his master to recall him and send some other person who might be more acceptable to his Excellency. “There is no occasion for any such thing,” replied the Vizir, looking very kindly upon the Ambassador: He had both esteem and kindness for him, and the Ambassador would find it so in all his business.
Then Sir John, besides the presents which he had delivered already, presented to Kara Mustafa “an incomparable perspective glasse[199] of 4 feet made by Campana, and a pockett one, also of Campana’s, and one of ten feet made in England,” and took his leave with a bow which the Grand Vizir was good enough to return.
Such, in substance, is Sir John’s own version of this historic interview. His feelings after it may be described as a mixture of relief and doubt, in which doubt predominated. “The misunderstandings between the Visir and me have, like the breaking of a Bone well sett, made our friendship the stronger,” he reported to the Secretary of State; and immediately, as if fearing the Nemesis which pursues boastfulness, he hastened to add: “But who can promise himself any thing in these times out of a certain prospect, or who can say that any thing is well done?”
Who, indeed! Turkey was no longer the Turkey to which Sir John had come, in which he had dwelt for three uneventful years so happily—the Turkey “of the two famous Visirs, Kuperli the father and Achmett his sonne; whose Justice, Detestation of Avarice, and Accesse renderd’ their Administration and all Buisenesse under it easy.” Gone was that golden age, and all men who during that twenty years’ interlude of righteousness had forgotten the normal rigour of Turkish rule, protested that “the Violence of this Goverment, as to Pride and Rapine is beyond all Memory and example.” Only a man like Dudley North saw that Kara Mustafa’s régime was not a departure from, but a return to normality. Finch, like the rest, stood aghast at a “barefacd’” arbitrariness utterly new to his experience: “I would,” he wrote, “all the Mutineers in England against their too much happinesse were exild’ for two yeares onely to be under this present Goverment!” and made no attempt to conceal his apprehensions for the future; “I shall count it a wonder, as well as a blessing,” he says, “if I scape thus.”
Prophetic words!