[275] Finch to Sunderland, Oct. 8-18, Nov. 6-16.
CHAPTER XX
A LULL IN THE STORM
“God be praisd’ that I can once write your Lordship Good Newes out of Turky: the Kehaiah of the Gran Visir is cut off!”—with these words Sir John Finch began his next despatch; and then went on to describe “the occasion of the fall of this Tyrant and worst of Men” as follows.
Whilst hunting in the Thracian plain, the Grand Signor had learnt that at Constantinople, despite his edicts against drunkenness, boza—a fermented liquor made from millet-seed—was openly sold! In a transport of prohibitionist frenzy, the Sultan ordered all the boza-vessels to be smashed. Whereupon the boza-sellers submitted to His Majesty a protest: They had not only paid to the Vizir’s Kehayah 70 purses for their license, but also bound themselves to pay a similar sum every six months; further, the Kehayah had created a Head for their Guild and vested him with one of the Grand Signor’s kaftans: was it just, after such a solemn and costly recognition of their trade, that they should have their vessels smashed? When the Hunter heard this, his rage knew no bounds. It was then for this—to enrich a miserable Kehayah—that he had deprived himself of the 400 purses per annum which the wine-tax yielded him! Let his head fly off—and straightway the Kehayah’s head flew off.
Truly a fine piece of work; no finer done in Turkey for many a year; and the fruits of it manifold, immediate and remote, tangible and otherwise. Take this, for a beginning: “His Hoggera’s and Houses Seald’ Up, and His whole Estate confiscated to the Gran Signor. As yett they have onely opend’ one Hoggera, where they found in ready mony 700 Purses, and 500 Purses in rich Persian furniture: They goe on dayly opening the rest, and at last They intend to open His Mansion House. The expectation is of finding No lesse then 3,000 Purses in all; from which hopes if they fall or find any clancular Imbezzlements, they have in hold His two Treasurers, Him of Adrianople, and the other of this Place, who will be forcd’ by Torture to confesse all.” This is the sum-total: three thousand purses (or a million and a half dollars) amassed in three years! Lost in as few minutes! No people in the world ever were more greedy of wealth than Turkish pashas—or less certain of its enjoyment. But on these aspects of the work—the economic and the moral—Sir John is silent: he feels, perchance, that little which is new can be said of the one, and little which is helpful of the other. Instead, he gives us a glimpse into the fiend incarnate’s invisible world, which so long submissive had thus suddenly risen in revolt. Let us, for Sir John’s sake, and to illustrate the situation, quote:
“The Visir was extreamly Jealous of two Great Men about the Gran Signor: Soliman, Kehaiah to the former Visir and Master of the Horse at present to the Gran Signor, was one; and the Kisler Aga, the Black Eunuch, was the other. The former, the Visir endeavourd’ to have removed by preferring Him to great Bassalikes. Against the latter He had workd’ so farr, that He had separated Him from the Gran Signor and the Queen Regent in this present removall of the Court, under pretence of giving Him the Honour of conducting the Queen Mother to Adrianople. But the Kisler Aga was not without a true friend, the Gran Signor’s Secretary, who had Confidence and Witt, and He took upon Him to acquaint the Emperour, that there were dayly Quarrells amongst His Women and that till the Kisler Aga returnd’, things would never be in good Order. Hereupon the Gran Signor gives order for His returne and He came doubly armd’, First with Presents to the Gran Signor of the value of Seventy Purses to regain His favour; for which the Emperour said to Him, Thou art now Twice My Sonne; then in the Second Place, He caused Seven Men to appear with an Arrs [Memorial] to the Gran Signor, wherein was expressed’, That His Majesty having deprived Himselfe of 400 Purses Per Annum, which the Custome of Wines did yield Him, to the End that the Mussulmen might not be drunk and kill each other, that His Ministers had introducd’ and licensed the publick Selling of Boza.” Hence that smashing of boza-vessels and flying off of Kehayah-heads: followed, in the orthodox Turkish course, by sealing up of dollar-crammed hoggeras and houses: a sequence as inevitable as any ever planned by a Harem-bred brain.
Going deeper into this Oriental labyrinth of plots, stratagems, and spoils, our Ambassador adds, though as a thing “which I cannot averr for certain,” that secret information of the Imperial rage had been conveyed in advance to the Vizir by one of his creatures, and that Kara Mustafa, to exonerate himself and to prevent awkward revelations, hastened, before the fatal command arrived, to give a striking demonstration of his public spirit by cutting off his Kehayah’s head and sending it to the Grand Signor. Probable enough! Not the least use of the delegation of powers in which the Ottoman polity delighted was to provide a superior with a handy scape-goat—some one upon whom, on emergency, he could shift the responsibility and the odium. The Grand Signor had such a convenient deputy in his Grand Vizir, the Grand Vizir in his Kehayah, and so every other grandee. For the rest, this was not the first time Kara Mustafa had saved his own head by offering up to justice that of another.[276] “But be it as it will,”—what really concerns us—“Dead He is, and a great Blow given by it to the Gran Visir; and many thinke that now the Gran Signor hath once Tasted of Blood that the Sword will not stop here: Nay further the Gran Signor Himselfe hath placd’ a New Kehaiah about the Visir who was an Officer of the last Visir and had the reputation of a Man of great Integrity; and when the Gran Signor conferrd’ the Charge upon Him, He told Him, Look you to it that things of this Nature doe not passe, else Your Head shall answer for it as Your Predecessours has done. All Men from this one Action expect a great change of Affayrs so that what were judgd’ Impossibility’s before become Now possibility’s, and possibility’s become Now Probability’s in effecting any thing. The French Ambassadour may Now at last in all likelyhood obtain His Audience upon the Saffà, and Our Affayrs Now give Us also a better prospect.” The age of thunder has gone—the lightnings of Kara Mustafa are extinguished for ever! Never, never more shall we tremble at thoughts of the Seven Towers. The spirit of servitude is dead: hail to Freedom, the nurse of manly sentiment, of that sensibility to “puntiglios,” which feels a slight like a wound. The King my Master’s honour will once again become a reality, instead of a mockery. All this, and much more of the same exalted nature, we may credibly suppose, radiated through Sir John’s mind, as he concluded: “I hope Your Lordship will Every Day hear better Newes and that My Successour will find as great a Calme as I have done a Storm.”[277]
In all this one thing stands conspicuous—not by its presence. The opposition to Kara Mustafa in the Seraglio is led by our “good friend” the late Vizir’s Kehayah, and by the Kislar Aga who, as we have heard, had with that other good friend of ours, the Customer, a pointed talk about our grievances on the very eve of our great enemy’s fall. It is impossible to avoid the surmise that our grievances and the consequent peril to the Grand Signor’s revenue had contributed something towards the Imperial fire which consumed the Kehayah. Yet in vain do we search our Ambassador’s reports for any hint that he played the humblest part in bringing about the happy conflagration; or for any indication that he tried to feed it, once kindled by others. Some presents to the “Queen Regent”—such as Elizabeth’s envoys knew so well how to distribute—one imagines, would not have come amiss. Sir John has here an excellent opportunity of reaching the Grand Signor behind the Grand Vizir’s back; and Sir John does not even see, much less stretch forth to seize it! Not to do, but to look on: commenting, chorus-like, upon the wonderful ways of Providence, speculating upon the benefits that may accrue to him from a situation he has neither helped to create nor to consolidate—such is his function in the drama of life. Does not here, in this monumental inadequacy, properly lie the source of the maltreatments and all the other “sinister Accidents” that befell us ever since that thrice-unfortunate strategic retreat to our bed?