I was witness to her signing a list of her creditors’ names, with the amount of her various responsibilities, at her request, in case, as she said, anything should befall her, that her creditors might know she never had the smallest intention of defrauding them, even of their usurious and unlawful gains. “When I get the money,” she added, “I shall pay them all just double what they lent me, and I think nobody can say that is unjust.”
All her creditors took 25 per cent. for the money they lent. Supposing Lady Hester had not made any difficulty on that head, and was willing to receive pecuniary assistance even at that loss, why nothing could be said about the matter. Gold was the commodity these merchants had to sell, and they made as much of it as they could; but she did not always get what she had bargained for: some of the lenders sent a part of the loan in coffee, rice, and in other merchandize. In most cases, the gold was not of full weight; for never was there a country in which money-clipping is carried on to a greater extent than in Turkey. And it is not fair to say that Jews are the only usurers: Mussulmans and Christians are just as bad, when the law, or other considerations, do not coerce them into honesty. Let us take, as an example, a Christian merchant of Beyrout.
Lady Hester Stanhope wanted to borrow £600; and she applied to Mr. ——, in September, 1826, when the exchange was at 20 piasters the Spanish dollar: £200, consequently, are about equal to 1000 Spanish dollars; and £600 to 3000 or 60,000 Turkish piasters. Her ladyship drew on Messrs. Coutts and Co. for £600, at one year’s date. The merchant gives her for her bill, instead of 60,000 piasters, only 52,500, that is 17½ for the dollar instead of 20, which was the real exchange: he gains at once on the transaction, 7500 piasters, or £75. But the bill has a year to run: he, therefore, demands a bonus for his risk, and modestly requires 1000 dollars, or £200; and Lady Hester at last receives £325 for her £600. This sum is paid in adlees of 16 piastres, ghazis of 20, roobeyas of 9, and sundry other current moneys; but, a week or two afterwards, the pasha issues a tariff, fixing a lower value than the current one on all the coinage of the empire, a step customary every year just before the taxes are gathered, by which the government gains a considerable increase of revenue. This is known to the merchant beforehand, who, having on his books a memorandum of the customary rates at which the money is annually set, or, which is more likely, having, for a consideration, obtained private information from the government secretaries what money will be rated lowest, takes care to make his rouleaus consist of what he is most desirous of ridding himself of: and Lady Hester finds that what she has received at 20 will only pass at 17¾, those at 9 only at 8¼, and so on; by which another serious loss is added to all the rest. But in August, 1837, her bill is delayed payment because Messrs. Coutts and Co. have not the certificate of her life for Michaelmas of that year, (delayed, probably, in consequence of Lord Palmerston’s measures) and she is compelled to ask time for six months more, which is granted on her signing a promissory note for an additional number of dollars in the same usurious proportion.
After this statement of her debts, Lady Hester next proceeded to explain how it was she had written to me in such haste to come over to Syria. It has already been mentioned that, in 1836, she had been informed, by one of her friends in England, that a considerable estate had been bequeathed to her, the knowledge of which was concealed from her by those privy to the bequest.
The beginning of this erroneous belief seems to date from the spring of 1836. In some letters which passed about that time between her ladyship and the Chevalier Henry Guys, French consul at Beyrout, which that gentleman kindly allows me to make use of, and which will best explain her feelings on the subject, it will be seen that she entertained no doubt on the subject, and was firmly persuaded that her friends, for the purpose of forcing her to come to England, kept her in ignorance of her good fortune, thinking that distress must eventually drive her back to her native country. These letters were transmitted to me at Nice, after my manuscript had been sent to England; but the narrative will suffer no interruption by their introduction here, and they serve to corroborate many portions of it.
Lady H. Stanhope to the Chevalier Henry Guys, French
Consul at Beyrout.
Translated from the French.
[No date.]
Monsieur,
A thousand and a thousand pardons for having delayed so long sending you the bills of exchange; but Logmagi has put off his journey to Beyrout from day to day, and I too have been in such a bad humour that I could not write.