Immediately messengers were despatched to Jerusalem to acquaint the Cordeliers “with to them most dreadfull Newes.” What made the news exceptionally dreadful was the sinister circumstance that, as this year the Latin and Greek Easter fell on the same day, the Greek Patriarch had an opportunity of celebrating his victory with a Te Deum at which they themselves, as well as all Eastern Christians, would of necessity be present. Sir John, who describes all these diplomatic manœuvres in detail, could not have been very sorry to see another foiled where he himself had striven in vain. So much at least may be inferred from his sardonic comment on the sole favour for the Faith his unhappy colleague seemed likely to secure: “He shall have the honour of rebuilding two churches that have bin burnt down: so wee encrease our churches here though the number of Christians decreases dayly; and the Pastours are here equall in number allmost to their sheep.”[215]
It should be mentioned that, apart from the other forces that compelled the Palatine to an over-hasty signature of Articles he did not fully understand, there was the fear of an agreement between Turkey and Russia, which appeared imminent. Yet the envoy from Muscovy, whose advent at that critical hour hastened the Polish surrender, had little reason to feel pleased with the good turn he had unwittingly done the Turks. He came from a Power which by its military resources, its proximity to the Sultan’s Persian enemies, and its influence over his Orthodox subjects, inspired respect in the Turks. But he came at a moment when respect was eclipsed by resentment.
In the preceding autumn, when peace with one country had come in sight, Kara Mustafa had begun provoking war with another. Turkish troops attacked the Russian fort of Zechrin, were badly beaten, and only escaped a total rout by a speedy retreat. The news of this disaster had been the signal for an Ottoman mobilisation on a colossal scale and accompanied with commensurate squeezing. No class or creed was spared: Moslems, Christians, and Jews, high and low, laity and clergy, were all mulcted indiscriminately. The Turkish ecclesiastics had to give up one-third of their income. The feudal land magnates had to renew their ancient conveyances at great expense, under pain of forfeiting their fiefs. The Prince of Moldavia was ordered to contribute 150 purses, and the Prince of Wallachia 300 purses, besides enormous quantities of provisions. Throughout the Empire old taxes were increased and new ones imposed: “All which things,” says Sir John, “make the people of the Country ready to hang themselves.” The Janissaries alone were left untouched by Kara Mustafa’s lash; for they alone could make a revolution. Before the Muscovite envoy had crossed the frontier the mobilised bodies had begun to move from the various provinces to the place of rendezvous three miles outside the capital, where the Grand Signor and Grand Vizir joined them about the middle of March, with more than the parade usual on such occasions. It was an astonishing sight. It lasted four days, and each day had its peculiar pageant. Sir John was present at the most important parts of the ceremony, and he sent to the Secretary of State a minute description of what he saw.
On the first day the Grand Vizir’s retinue marched out under the command of his Kehayah—over one hundred pages clad in cloth of gold and coats of mail. On the second day there was a solemn procession of the Guilds—weavers, tailors, shoe-makers, bakers, blacksmiths, and so forth, about 12,000 men in all—one-third of whom would accompany the Army on its campaign and minister to its wants. Some of them rode past in glittering coats of mail with long lances in their hands and swords at their sides, while musketeers of the same trade marched on either side of the mounted squadrons. In the middle of each squadron there were representatives of each Guild engaged in their peculiar craft either on foot or perched on the backs of camels, according to the exigencies of their occupation. In this fashion they went on, fifty-three companies of warrior-workers, with their kettle-drums, their great drums, their trumpets and other instruments of barbaric music: “So the Turkish Military Camp,” comments the chronicler, “is nothing else but a civil camp being furnishd’ with all the Arts of Peace in Time of Warr.” The third day witnessed the exodus of the Janissary Aga at the head of his Janissaries—about 20,000 of the best Infantry in the whole world. And then, on the fourth day, the Grand Signor in person made his Alloy, as the Turks called this marching out in state.
He went forth accompanied by his son, his son-in-law, the Grand Vizir, the Vizirs of the Bench, the Capitan Pasha, and all the other great pashas of the Empire with their retinues “most proudly clad, jackd’, and mounted.” Here was, indeed, the grandeur of which Sir John had dreamed. He gazed on, dumbfounded by the profusion of wealth that met his eyes; the Sultan’s led horses were almost hidden under embroideries of gold, thick-set with jewels of fabulous value. Behind them came a camel on the back of which was strapped a chest of beaten gold, made in the form of a square tower, richly encrusted with precious stones, and enclosing the Alcoran. Immediately after rode the young Prince on “as fine a Horse as Nature ever producd’”—bridle and trappings aglow with diamonds. Last of all came the Grand Signor himself, attired in a vest lined with black fox fur worth ten thousand crowns, and bestriding a steed the furniture of which was “all over besett with Jewells of Immense Price”—“really He appeard like an Emperour.” He was followed by a numerous body of royal attendants of all ranks and stalwart Spahis.
The procession closed with a caravan of camels, some laden with the Imperial baggage, others carrying the Treasure—“a Million and a halfe in Gold, and as much more in Silver: every cammel carrying fifty thousand Zecchins, or ten Purses of silver”—under a guard of trusty Janissaries.
“I do not know,” says the Ambassador, “whether what in the sight gave so much divertisement, can afford any in the reading.” The actual description of the pageant may not—descriptions seldom do. But it is enlivened by notes which are certainly more diverting than they could have been intended by the writer. One of them reveals the diplomat’s keen eye for points of etiquette; he observes that the Vizir rode with the Sultan’s son-in-law on his left; “which seems to me to evidence that the right hand is amongst the Turkes the Place of Precedence; though even in Turky tis generally thought otherwise.” Another reveals his credulity: in the train of the Sultan’s son-in-law Sir John saw, or imagined that he saw, eight tamed tigers warmly clad, carried behind eight horsemen: “of these I am informd’ the Gran Signor makes use when He Hunts Hares and other Animals; They having gott their prey, leap again upon the Horses behind their Masters.” What wag supplied His Excellency with this valuable information must remain matter of conjecture—one suspects the Honourable Dudley. A third note reveals the Ambassador’s vanity. Speaking of the Guilds, he says: “T was pretty to see the Respect of the Blacksmiths towards me; for seeing me they layd one of their companions upon His back; and placing Boards upon His Belly they layd’ a Great Stone upon them for an Anvill and putting a Red Hott Iron upon the Stone, eight of them with their Great Hammers fell to worke.” Another tribute of respect paid to Sir John on the same occasion makes a less severe demand on our faith: a large boat, like a brigantine, armed with half-a-dozen small guns was drawn along on sledges: when it passed by the Ambassador, the commander stopped and fired all the guns for a salute—“a thing,” his Excellency adds modestly, “of no great moment, but that any Civility is so when Turkes make a solemnity; and especially No others having receivd the like.” For all that, Sir John was very glad to see the backs of Kara Mustafa and his satellites: “T’ is sayd that they cannot returne hither this following winter. If so, t’ is very good new’s for me, for from thence I hope for some quiett and repose after the turmoyls and vexations I and all others have bin under.”[216]
It was shortly after this exit that the envoy from Muscovy arrived and met with a reception which showed how little reasonable accommodation was to the Grand Vizir’s taste. The first thing Kara Mustafa did was to ask the envoy to hand over to him the letters he had for the Grand Signor, and as the envoy refused to deliver them into any but the Grand Signor’s hands, he had recourse to a ruse. A day was appointed as if for an Imperial Audience, and the Russian set out holding up his letters before his forehead, after the Muscovite manner. On the way, the chaoushes who pretended to be conducting him to the Sultan snatched the letters from him and carried them to the Grand Vizir, who, on finding that they contained expostulations for his hostile designs and expressions of a desire for an amicable settlement, informed the envoy that it was too late; the army was ready for a campaign; only if, before it crossed the frontier, Muscovy would give satisfaction war could be averted; the price of peace being a cession of the object under dispute. With this message and without “any Testimony from the Port of the least imaginable respect,” the envoy was dismissed. And the march towards the Danube began.[217]
At this point Sir John ceases to be a mere spectator of the international drama and becomes for a moment an actor. For some time past a strong feeling of opposition to Charles II.’s Francophile policy had been growing up in England; and at last the King, yielding to public opinion, made an attempt to curb the power of Louis, who so far had carried everything before him against the whole Continental Alliance. France was asked to come to terms, and as she returned an evasive answer England began preparations for forcing her. News of the crisis had reached Turkey early in March, and created a considerable flutter in the diplomatic dovecote; but it was not until the end of April that the consequences of an Anglo-French conflict, should it arise, were brought home to our Ambassador.
A drunken English sailor at Smyrna met some Frenchmen in the street and, addressing them as “French dogs,” cried out that he hoped ere long to get one of their jackets and be “Allamode.” The Frenchmen fell upon him and wounded him in the head. Thereupon a body of about thirty English seamen gathered together and rushed to the French Consul’s house, breathing vengeance. The French merchants hastened to the defence of their Consul, and tried to repel the attack with stones and cudgels; but with no success. The English, after breaking all the windows, climbed up into the outer gallery, drove the defenders into the inner rooms, and were already beginning to pull down the house, when our Consul, accompanied by Sir Richard Munden, who was then in the Levant with H.M.S. St. David for the protection of English trade, and the other Commanders then in port, arrived upon the scene. The assailants at first refused to obey; “one of them swearing a desperate oath that He would not give over till He had drunke the Bloud of a Frenchman.” But in the end they were induced by threats of martial law to abandon their sanguinary design.