“In short,” Finch sums up, “though wee cannot bragg of our usage, yet wee may justly say wee have fard’ better then any other Nation. For hitherto though in the worst of Times, I have maintaind’ all the Capitulations Inviolable.” He knew that he was well off, and meant to continue so. He had had his lesson. If his cherished Capitulations were attacked, he would indeed defend them to the utmost of his ability. But as to matters of etiquette, the King having graciously granted him his “dispensation for that complyance” on the point of the Soffah, he registered a vow to “be caught no more in a Ceremoniall Nett.”[211] Acquiescence, after all, has this merit: it prevents noise and saves time.
In the absence of personal history, the Ambassador gives us the history of others. Time was when Sir John, as we have seen, could not find “materialls enough to furnish a Dispatch.” Now it is “conveyances, not matter” that he wants, in order to keep abreast of the “variety’s of change and newes” which crowd upon him. Whatever else Kara Mustafa could not make, he could make things move; and, under his rule, Turkey found herself transformed from a placid lake into a foaming torrent. This transformation is well depicted in our Ambassador’s despatches. A rich chronicle, alive with events, domestic and foreign, civil and military, supplying abundant food for reflection to those who have accustomed themselves to meditate on the characters of men and the fortunes of nations. A thoroughly honest chronicle too. Sir John scrupulously discriminates between reliable intelligence and irresponsible rumour. When dealing with first-hand information, he gives us its sources; when not, his favourite expression, “Tis said,” serves us as a warning that the writer relates what he has heard, but cannot vouch for. He is deeply conscious of the extreme difficulty of getting at the truth of things in Turkey, and does not by any means profess always to believe the reports he transmits.[212] We have variant accounts set forth with perfect candour, and statements previously made corrected as the result of further inquiry. Fond though he is of speculating on the causes and consequences of events, our chronicler takes care to keep surmise severely distinct from certainty. He never pretends to do more than present to the Secretary of State the most plausible conjectures he can form, with the proviso, “Time will make all things plain.”
Not the least interesting, or the least melancholy, of these events is the conduct of Kara Mustafa—the ruler of a mighty Empire—towards the representatives of the little tributary Republic of Ragusa: one of them, Signor Caboga, the “lusty, gallant fellow” whom we saw in happier days disporting himself at Adrianople with our gay Chaplain. The Vizir had consented to treat for an adjustment upon payment of a preliminary instalment of 200,000 dollars, and despatched an Aga to collect this sum, threatening that, in case of refusal, he would order the Pasha of Bosnia to seize the City and territory of the Republic and make slaves of the inhabitants. The messenger returned with the answer that the Ragusans offered 100 purses (50,000 dollars) as a ransom. This offer was rejected, and the Ambassadors were summoned before the Divan, where they were asked whether they would pay the sum demanded or not. On their replying that they could not, Kara Mustafa “calld’ them Doggs, Infidells, Hoggs, and Atheists; commanding them to be carryd’ to prison.” By and by one of their pretended creditors visited them, and finding them sitting upon their beds, cried out that this was not the way to pay their debts. Signor Caboga was unwise enough to retort, “You see us on our beds, but wee hope ere long to see you impald’ upon stakes.” For this speech they were removed, by order of the Vizir, “into a common and filthy gaole.” While they lay in that “infamous prison,” among the vilest criminals, two more envoys arrived from Ragusa “to mitigate the implacable mind of the Visir. But they no sooner came to Silistria where the Gran Signor was, but they were suddainly clapt in chaines and one of them dyd with the insupportable weight of the chaines about his neck.”[213]
Hardly less drastic was Kara Mustafa’s treatment of the representative of a much greater State than Ragusa. In the previous autumn the Palatine of Kulm had come from Poland, with a magnificent suite of at least three hundred persons, as Ambassador Extraordinary, to conclude the long-drawn-out negotiations for peace. On his arrival, Sir John had showered upon the newcomer those tokens of friendship which he had never known to fail of their effect: “I presented him with five chests of Florence and other choice Wines out of Christendome, amongst which was one chest of the Pope’s Wine; which he never drank of but that he first signd’ himselfe with the crosse and rose up and was uncoverd!” But Kara Mustafa nipped this friendship in its juicy bud. For reasons which Sir John could not fathom, the Vizir forbade all further intercourse with the Pole, at the same time ordering our Ambassador to keep the prohibition secret. This embargo placed Sir John in a very awkward position: the world wondered why he paid no visit to his colleague, and Sir John had to dissemble until the Plague breaking out in the Pole’s house afforded him a plausible excuse for holding aloof.[214] But though he had no direct communication with the Palatine, he kept himself informed of all that passed between him and the Porte.
It is by no means our intention to recite the Iliad of miseries, the humiliations, the terrors and utter harrowing to despair, which the poor Palatine underwent incessantly till the end of his mission. Let the following extracts from Sir John’s despatches speak for themselves.
Dec. 15-25, 1677.—“The Polish Ambassadour has the Plague very hott in his house, 14 persons of quality being dead out of it (for the Visir would suffer none of the Nobility to depart), and two particularly last night; and yet I found one Druggerman who had the courage to goe to him and wish him in my name a happy Christmas: He sent me word that he intended to visit me before he left this place; not knowing, good gentleman, the restraint that I am under: tis hard really that in all this danger the Visir will not permitt him to change his house, calling the motion when it was made by him, a Christian Panick fear.”
Jan. 19-29, 1677-78.—“The Polish Ambassadour is here still and yet alive, though the Plague was very hott in his house, he could not get leave to remove to another, having no other answer but this, Let him run his destiny.”
March 1-11, 1677-78.—“At last the Peace between the Port and the Poles is concluded; which was effected three dayes since but is not yet underwritten.... The Ambassadour was so long inflexible, but he gott nothing by his standing out thus long but bad words and worse Treatment, a great part of his trayn being dead of the Plague by ill accommodation when Infection was gott amongst them.” So if this treatment, as seems probable, was the result of policy rather than of mere cruelty, it proved efficacious. “The Peace was patchd’ up by the Tartar Han or Crim Tartar ... the Polish Ambassadour applying himselfe to the Mediation of this Prince with such Humility that though His Principality is so qualifyd’ ... He kissd’ the very Hem of his Garment that touchd’ the Ground.”
March 2-12, 1677-78.—“The Peace with Poland is subscribd’ on both sides ... the Poles have deliverd’ up not onely a great part of Ukrania, two places there onely remaining to them, but what is of worse consequence to them, they have surrenderd’ all Podolia entirely, the richest province they had.”
In return for these territorial sacrifices, the Ambassador expected some religious concessions, among them the restoration of our old friends, the Latin Fathers, to the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. The Poles set immense store by this point, “for their wisedome tells them, that if the Restitution of the Holy Sepulchre depends upon the Peace with that Crowne, they shall be sure hereafter of the assistance of all Christian Princes upon any new warr with the Turk.” And in fact they had managed to insert an Article to such effect in the Treaty. But it was not for nothing that the Porte had for its chief Interpreter a Greek. The Treaty had been drawn up in two languages—Latin and Turkish. Now, in the Turkish version, that Article, from possession and guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre—the form under which it figured in the Latin text—had been whittled down to mere access to it: a privilege that the Latin Fathers already enjoyed. The Ambassador demanded that the Article should be interpreted according to the Latin text; the Porte adhered to the letter of the Turkish text. Hence several stormy conferences, in the course of which the Grand Vizir’s Kehayah and the Rais Effendi told the Pole that they would give him war if he would not have peace on their terms, called him a faithless Giaour who would fly from what he had signed, and reviled him with such violence that at length the poor Palatine, terrified for his liberty, if not for his life, fairly gave in.