Acting upon this trouble-saving view, Sir John had tried to dissuade the Assigns from sending away the widow and children, and when he perceived that his remonstrances made no impression upon them, he advised the Consul to keep out of the affair. But he did not venture to issue a categorical prohibition, lest he should be accused of betraying the Pentlow estate into the hands of the Turks, “who,” it might have been said, “had not otherwise taken notice of their advantage.”[226] From this neutral attitude nothing could induce Sir John to depart. However, he sent his Dragoman with a letter to the Vizir, to assist the Assigns—at least so he says; though, according to another version, before the Grand Vizir’s disturbing message had reached the Ambassador, his Dragoman, Signor Antonio Perone, had gone to Adrianople with Mr. North on some other affairs, and to their surprise they found the Assigns with the Chief Dragoman of the Smyrna Consulate already there. Be that as it may, Messrs. Smith and Ashby certainly did not profit by the presence of those gentlemen; but, left to their own resources, made a mess of the business.
To begin with, they declared that all the property entrusted to them amounted to no more than 50,000 dollars. Kara Mustafa was not convinced; common report credited the late merchant with ten times that amount; and he already knew Mr. Ashby. He therefore informed him and his co-administrator that, unless they rendered a true account, they would have their arms and legs broken, or at least be put into the galleys. At the sound of these gruesome threats, Messrs. Smith and Ashby raised the inventory to 70,000 dollars: and that, they said, was all. But the Turks still refused to believe them: the whole truth or torture! At length the Assigns, overcome by fear, agreed to deliver within two months 90,000 dollars: 50,000 for the Grand Signor’s Exchequer; 30,000 for the Grand Vizir; and 10,000 for his Kehayah. Then the Turks proceeded to give a final turn to the screw—one of those humorous little turns that marked every Turkish extortion: Messrs. Smith and Ashby were made to promise the Aga, who had escorted them from Smyrna and who would escort them back and keep them in custody until payment was completed, a present of 3500 dollars “for his pains and charges.”[227]
Kara Mustafa, too, had his little joke. After finishing with the Assigns, he informed the Ambassador that he had done him a friendly turn: he had interceded with the Grand Signor on his behalf and had prevailed upon his Majesty to pardon him—for 90,000 dollars—the crime of endeavouring to send away the Grand Signor’s subjects: the Ambassador must now take care that the money was paid within the time agreed upon.
The humour of this message was lost upon Sir John: “Two things here I cannot understand,” he gravely told the Secretary of State, “First, How I come to be taxd’ of an Action I expressely wrote against to the Consul at Smirna many moneths together, and made him disown it. Secondly, how I come to be responsible for a summe of mony, for the freeing of Private Persons and a Private Estate, by virtue of an Agreement made without my Notice: Suppose the Rack and Tortures had made them subscribe 10 Times that summe?” Was this what he got after all his strenuous efforts not to enmesh himself in the snares of that unspeakable Kehayah and his master? Verily, the ways of the Turks were past comprehension. “It seems they looke upon Publick Ministers Here as Publick Hostages; and will have the Prince to answer for the miscarriages of every one of their subjects.”[228]
Meanwhile the subjects in question were beginning to regret at leisure the bargain they had huddled up in panic. On their way to Smyrna they paid the Turks 10,000 dollars on account, and when they got there they made some further payments. But presently they perceived that they had not so many assets of the deceased in their hands as they thought, and what they had it was not easy to dispose of—who dared buy goods that lay under Kara Mustafa’s thumb? After selling all they could at such prices as they could get, they still found themselves short of the stipulated sum by 20,000 dollars. In their perplexity they asked the Nation for a loan wherewith to clear themselves. Both the Factory of Smyrna and that of Constantinople unanimously petitioned the Ambassador to advance the money out of the Levant Company’s Treasury, in order to avoid an “avania.” Kara Mustafa, they knew, would stick at nothing. But the Ambassador refused to interfere. He would do nothing to countenance the Turkish pretension that the Public was in any way responsible for the liabilities of individuals.
To crown the wretched Assigns’ embarrassment, the Turks would not wait for the day of payment. They demanded the balance at once, and, on being told that the money was not available, they seized the house in which the widow lived, broke open her late husband’s warehouses, and put the goods they found therein up for sale. But the plunder meeting with few buyers at Smyrna, most of it was sent up to Constantinople, and the remainder, as was natural in the circumstances, fetched only a fraction of its real value. When the Turks had counted the proceeds, they declared that there was still a deficit of 15,000 dollars to be made good. Utterly demoralised by this catastrophe, Messrs. Smith and Ashby abandoned all thoughts of fulfilling their bargain, and fled to the Ambassador for protection. His Lordship answered that what they suffered was entirely their own doing: he could not free them from an engagement to which they had set their signatures; but he would see what he could do to mitigate their distress by obtaining for them, if possible, an extension of the time limit. The Assigns declined such qualified assistance, and declared that they washed their hands of the whole business. So the Turks, who, on their part, were determined not to remit one asper of their bond, put them in prison.
This brought upon the stage Mrs. Pentlow. While our men of the West were content with a rôle of Oriental passivity, this lady of the East decided on direct action.
In the springtime of the year (1679), when the Imperial Court arrived at Constantinople, the widow, taking one of her children, went up to the capital with the intention, it was said, of making a personal appeal to the Grand Signor. The Grand Signor’s Ministers, alarmed, endeavoured, partly by fair and partly by other means, to deter her. She persisted, and at last got back her house and some money for her expenses, and, as to the Assigns, the promise that they should be released for 2000 dollars—a concession which Kara Mustafa could well afford to make, for the tin brought to Constantinople from Pentlow’s warehouse, when sold, had yielded a large sum above the estimate at which it had been taken, almost making up the balance due.
Mrs. Pentlow returned to Smyrna thinking that the Assigns would be pleased with her efforts. But Messrs. Smith and Ashby were past being pleased with anything. Though their liability had narrowed down to a matter of only 2000 dollars, they refused to pay. In vain did their friends urge them to be sensible. They met all counsels with the angry obstinacy of exasperated sheep: they would not disburse another penny: they would rather lie in prison till a new Ambassador came out, when, they doubted not, justice would be done them. They had been robbed, they cried, by the Kehayah and his accomplices. The Grand Signor knew nothing of it: it only required a competent ambassador to bring their case to his notice, and all would be well. The Turks, failing to bend, decided to break, their obstinacy by throwing them into a dungeon. Our merchants, however, had by this time lashed themselves into furious recklessness: they resisted and very nearly killed the officer who came to remove them.
Things had reached this dangerous climax when the Smyrna Factory stepped in to avert a tragedy. By the instrumentality of the Chaplain there was raised a fund for the prisoners’ redemption; and so Mr. Ashby is out of it again, without bone broken—not, we hope, without instruction from the adventure. As for Mrs. Pentlow and her children, we shall hear of them again in due time.