“The number of my servants had been much talked of; but as these people often set off, four and five together, in the night, and as several were constantly absent upon leave to look after their families, whilst others were always upon the sick list, giving themselves fevers by over-eating, I could not possibly get on with fewer than I had: for five men here cannot do the work of one in Europe. What are called dragomans and secretaries are a description of persons even worse than the lower class—the idlest and most inefficient of human beings.
“As for the persecuted people who took refuge at my house, you must have heard, of course, of the revolution in the mountain about 1822. For half a day’s journey around me, all the inhabitants abandoned their houses to Turkish and Druze soldiers. I remained alone, tormented to death with miserable fugitives. Terrible storms and an unusual fall of snow destroyed a vast number of houses, and I had only two rooms remaining in mine which were at all habitable. Buildings and walls fell, and all the rest were deluged with water. My health, which was very bad, was rendered worse by the uncommon inclemency of the season, as snow has not been known to have fallen in the lower part of the mountain for thirty years. The cattle died of want, and the next harvest could not be got in for want of beasts of burthen.
“This was enough, and the rest you may imagine; and if you never heard half of this whilst you were in France, you must always recollect that what passes in the interior is but little known upon the coast; and a consul or a merchant, by his fireside, is little better acquainted with the state of affairs than they are at Marseilles.
“An old Druse had his head chained to his feet, and was thrown into a dungeon. Several villages, like little towns, were burnt, many women killed, and the property of most of my friends totally destroyed; whilst the unfortunate wives of considerable men were hiding themselves in the snow-mountains in disguise, trembling for their infant sons, whose fate, if got hold of, was pretty certain. The two lads, Hanah and Bootroos, and one of whom I had then the greatest confidence in, were constantly wandering about in search of these unhappy fugitives. I will not say any more; you may judge of my feelings and situation.”
Such was the rough statement Lady Hester gave me. She alludes in it to the persecuted people who took refuge under her roof: but, in her oral communication, she never said a word of having afforded an asylum to almost all the Franks in Sayda, who fled to her residence in a panic after the battle of Navarino, and many of whom she lodged and boarded until they could go back in safety: nor of the two hundred wretched beings whom she fed and clothed, housed, and protected, for nearly two years, after the sacking of Acre. She never said a word of her numerous acts of beneficence, nor of the indulgent forbearance she showed even to those who had wronged her. Here is an authentic case, among twenty similar ones which might be cited.
Shaykh Omar ed Dyn, a puritanical Mussulman, who kept a grocer’s shop in Sayda, was for many years her purveyor and bailiff; and when, for want of money, she had let her account run up to something considerable, he took her note of hand for the amount, and, at the end of the year, dunned her for payment. To quiet him, she gave him a fresh note of hand, which he required should be for double the amount. Then he begged of her a quarter of wheat, then another; then an entire piece of broad cloth; then this thing, then that, until he ultimately paid himself twice over. I well recollect, in 1831, when, one day, I was going down to Sayda, Lady Hester’s saying to me, “Don’t ride the chestnut horse,” (rather a valuable one) “for, if you do, as you must pass Shaykh Omar’s shop, he will beg it of me for his son, and I dare not refuse him.”
This man, on his death-bed—for he died some time during my absence—called his wife and children to his bedside, and said to them—“The Syt Mylady owes me a sum of money; you will find her note of hand among my papers: burn it. She has ever been a benefactress to me, and, if I die with a little property, it is from her generosity. You will here promise me never to urge the claim against her; for I have received double and treble its amount at her hands.” They made solemn asseverations, and, after his death, the eldest son went to Dar Jôon, and informed Lady Hester Stanhope of their father’s dying injunctions: often did the widow, too, repeat to her how sacred she held them. But it had come to Lady Hester’s certain knowledge that, notwithstanding all these professions, the duplicity and ingratitude which mark the natives of the country were exemplified in this instance, as well as in all others; for the widow had preserved the paper, and had twice attempted to sell it, once to an Englishman, and once to a townsman. Notwithstanding this, every year, at the Byràm, Lady Hester gave the widow, whom her son’s extravagance and inactivity in business had again reduced to narrow circumstances, a handsome sum of money.[71]
Lady Hester’s exceeding generous and charitable disposition was well known; and she was consequently besieged with tales of distress, with projects of important discoveries, which wanted nothing in the world to put them in motion but money, with secrets that could be entrusted only to her, with presents that were always sure to be paid for at treble their value. Her creditors assailed her with letters, messages, visits; and these she was obliged to silence by payments in part, and increase of interest.
But this was not all. During the Greek revolution, the Mediterranean was so infested by pirates, that it was dangerous for merchants in the Levant to make their remittances to Europe in specie, a state of things which so considerably increased the value of bills of exchange, that they were often bought up at a great premium. Yet, in the face of these notorious facts, Signor ——, a merchant at Beyrout, used to cash many of Lady Hester’s bills on Messrs. Coutts and Co., of London, or on Messrs. Webb and Co., of Leghorn, at 35, 25, and 20 per cent. discount, when such paper was actually at a premium in the market. Mr. —— took 15, then 10, then 5 per cent. discount. At various periods, likewise, Lady Hester had had severe illnesses. There was no person about her, in whom she could put confidence, but Miss Williams, who was totally unacquainted with pecuniary affairs, and, of course, incapable of remedying the mischief, even if her innocent mind and artless character had not prevented her from suspecting it. At one time, Lady Hester had an Armenian steward, who kept his accounts in his own language: at another time, she had a Piedmontese, who went to Beyrout to negociate the bills, and must have known the nature of such transactions. Who can wonder, therefore, if all her concerns proved ruinous to her, surrounded as she was by adventurers and intriguers? Add to this, that various sorts of money are current in Turkey, as many, perhaps, as thirty, all fluctuating in value, and contributing still more to the complication of her distresses. It would hardly have been a matter of wonder, even under ordinary circumstances, that she should have been plunged into embarrassments; but, in the peculiarly perplexing situation in which she was placed, it was unavoidable.