It was not long before the distrust thus sown in Kara Mustafa’s mind bore fresh fruit.
To make this new Avania intelligible to the modern reader it is necessary to say something first about the fiscal chaos that reigned in seventeenth century Turkey.
The only money coined by the Grand Signor’s mint, and therefore the only money properly speaking Turkish, was the asper—a very small piece of white (Greek aspron) metal, once upon a time silver and worth over 2 pence, now so much debased that it was worth about 3 farthings, and so badly made and so sadly clipped that it commanded very little esteem even at that price. The coin most generally current in the Empire was of foreign manufacture—Spanish pieces of eight, Lion dollars of Holland, the Rix dollars of Germany, the Quarts of Poland, Venetian and Hungarian sequins, French scudes, and, lately, French five-sous pieces of silver worth about 5 pence English and called by the Turks temeens, by the Franks Luigini or Ottavi. These polyonymous coins had experienced many vicissitudes, and our tale is indissolubly intertwined with the history of their rise and fall in the Ottoman Empire.
First introduced about 1660 by a French mariner, they immediately acquired a great vogue among the Turks. They were bright little things, most attractive to the eye by their pretty stamp of fleurs-de-lys, most agreeable to the touch, and altogether ideal for small change. The mariner made a handsome profit out of his adventure, bartering his five-sous pieces at the rate of 8 to the dollar—getting, that is, about 5 shillings for 3s. 4d. Tempted by his success, the merchants of France began to import temeens in enormous quantities, till the market was glutted, and the dealers had to pass them at 10 to the dollar. To make up for the decrease of profit, they increased the alloy; of course, that could not be effected in the Royal Mint of France: it was effected by a French lady who had the privilege of coining and who luckily bore in her coat-of-arms three fleurs-de-lys. The fraud was not detected by the Turks, and the temeen, debased, once more became so profitable a commodity that others stepped in to compete with the French in fraud: the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Republic of Genoa, all the petty Italian States that could by hook or by crook put in fleurs-de-lys; and those who were not fortunate enough to boast such flowers put in something else that looked more or less like them—for example, spread eagles so cunningly contrived as to need an expert in heraldic natural history to tell the difference. Never was the subtle East more grossly outwitted by the West; and the swindlers had the impudence to add ribaldry to injury by adorning their bastard coin with such legends as “Voluit hanc Asia mercem—That’s the stuff Asia wants,” or “De procul pretium ejus—Don’t look at it too closely.” Dutch, German, and English speculators joined in the nefarious traffic, so that by 1668 it was estimated that there was forty million dollars’ worth of this debased currency in Turkey, and more was coming—whole shiploads of it. Naturally, the more temeens flowed in, the lower they sank in value (in 1668 they passed at Smyrna for 20 or 24 to the dollar); and the lower they sank in value, the higher rose the proportion of alloy. By gradual transmutations the original silver of the coin became almost pure copper. Rascals had the time of their lives. All men who failed as merchants became bankers, flooding the country with counterfeit silver and draining it of all the gold and genuine silver that fell into their hands.
Hitherto the Porte, engrossed by the Cretan War, had made no effort to check the evil. But it was thought that, the moment peace was signed, the first thing taken in hand would be the regulation of the currency. And if the Sultan’s Ministers were not disposed to move of their own accord, there were those whose interest it was to instigate them. English merchants considered that the vast importation of false money must at last redound to their serious prejudice: the French and Italian importers, making 50 per cent profit on the temeens, were able to outbid us in the Turkish market. Therefore, in 1668, the Levant Company forbade under severe penalties its Factors to receive this money, and, at its instance, the King ordered Sir Daniel Harvey to call the attention of the Grand Signor to “the mischiefs and ill consequences of that abuse.” The Ambassador was so successful as to get the Turkish Government to forbid the circulation of the temeens by Proclamation: “I have,” he reported, “spoyld I hope the Trade of the French and Italians, with thare false mony, every body refusing to take them.” But this sudden and absolute denunciation of the most common coin in the country spelt ruin for millions of people, especially of the poorer classes, and the distress was heightened when the tax-gatherers refused to accept the temeen as legal tender, but demanded Lion dollars or Seville and Mexico pieces of eight, coins which had by now become almost unobtainable. The upshot was drubbings and imprisonments on one side, riots on the other: at Brusa and Angora the outraged taxpayers rose in rebellion, and some of the Grand Signor’s officers fell victims to their wrath. However, from that hour the temeen was irrevocably doomed; and fraudulence had to seek a new field in the false dollar, which was now pushed into the market with as much vigour and as little scruple as its predecessor. Harvey lost no time in obtaining samples and in lecturing the Grand Vizir on the subject, with the result that, in 1671, a severe inquiry was instituted and several officials who connived at the importation of these products of Western Art smarted for it.[204]
Nevertheless, the traffic continued to flourish, Lion dollars being manufactured even at Smyrna, as we have seen from Mr. Rycaut’s dispute with the French Consul at the end of 1674;[205] and the Levant Company, fearing lest, in spite of its prohibitions, some Englishmen should again engage in it, passed an order that all specie arriving in Turkey on English bottoms should be examined by the Ambassador and Consuls, and none, save such as was of perfect alloy, should be permitted to enter the country. Further, to prove their good faith, the directors of the Company ordered that the examination should be carried out in the presence of Turkish officials. From this well-intentioned measure were to spring some very serious ills. The Turkish officials displayed the liveliest reluctance to meddle in the matter. They frankly regarded the whole business as a blind designed to cover the importation of false money, and were afraid of laying themselves open to the charge of connivance. In fact, the more earnestly the English invited the Turks to witness their probity, the worse grew the Turks’ opinion of the English. Their attitude, not unreasonable in men who had had such experience of Western probity, might have warned our Ambassador that he was skating on exceedingly thin ice. But he did not heed the warning. It was the Company’s order, and Sir John, who had in a superlative degree the fault that so often belongs to conscientious public servants—an excess of zeal over discretion—was anxious not only to carry out his instruction, but even to better it. Not content with inviting the Customer, he invited the Kaimakam himself to the inspection. Nor did anything occur to demonstrate the injudiciousness of these proceedings until the Ashby case.
At that inauspicious moment the Levant Company’s “General” ships arrived at Aleppo carrying, over and above their freight of cloth and other English manufactures, 200,000 new Lion dollars. The unusual quantity of the coin was in itself calculated to engender doubts about its quality: never before had so vast a sum of new money been imported in a lump—30, 40, or 50 thousand dollars had hitherto been the maximum. And as if the quantity alone was not enough, “our back friends” (Sir John’s expression), the Dutch and the French, did all they could to confirm the Turks in their scepticism by positively asserting that our dollars were bad. However, the Pasha of Aleppo would have let the consignment pass: 2000 or 2500 dollars was all that he needed to be fully persuaded of our probity. But as our Consul, having already been reprimanded by the Company for indulging the Turks with bakshish, dared not gratify him unless he was prepared to do so out of his own pocket, the Pasha, in revenge, notified the Grand Vizir that the English had imported so many thousands of false dollars and asked for instructions.
Kara Mustafa caught fire at the news, and all the foreign Ministers at Constantinople hastened to blow the coals: the Dutch were angry with us, because the coin was coin of Holland and by dealing in it we, as it were, took the bread out of their mouths; the French, because we had taken away from them all their Turkey trade, and more particularly because our Aleppo Factory had just erected a Company to trade directly with Marseilles in those very commodities which the French had until now regarded as their exclusive monopoly. The Venetians were dissatisfied because the influx of silver dollars in such quantities hindered the advantageous vent of their gold sequins. And all of them owed us a grudge for exposing their fiscal frauds. Thus stimulated, Kara Mustafa ordered the consignment to be sequestered, and two dollars out of each bag to be sent to him for trial.
The English at Constantinople heard of these proceedings by accident a few days before Sir John’s audience of reconciliation; and the Ambassador seized that opportunity to discuss the matter with the Grand Vizir, who told him plainly what he had done, stating that, if the money proved good, it would be restored to the owners, “for God forbid that any man should loose an Asper”; but, if it proved bad; it should all be confiscated. Sir John, after assuring him that it was perfectly good, pleaded that, in case some small part of it, “either by the mistake of good men or malice of ill men,” turned out bad, the error or knavery should not be visited upon the innocent; let only that part of it be confiscated. For the rest, he urged, all the English factors were under an oath to receive no imported money till it was inspected by the Turkish authorities, and if the Inspectors approved it not, they were obliged to send it away again; so, as there was no clandestine importation, there could be no possibility of fraud. Lastly, he added, if difficulties were put in the way of good money, we who now imported more than any other nation should be forced to give up importing any at all. The Vizir, in answer to this plea, merely said that, when the money came, he would communicate further with the Ambassador.