There was great charm in the manner of both Lord and Lady Ponsonby, and they showed much kindness to all the members of the Embassy. There was not one of us who would not have been ready to make any sacrifice of time and pleasure to meet their wishes.
Lord Ponsonby was not a wealthy peer, but his expenditure was lavish as far as the table was concerned. Briant, a Frenchman, was steward and head cook, and his wife was maid to Lady Ponsonby. They received £400 a year between them for their services, but it was well known by the members of the Embassy that Briant, during the few years he had been at Constantinople, had been enabled to deposit several thousand pounds in one of the banks at Pera, levying a heavy percentage on everything that he purchased, wine included, and some of which it was discovered he was in the habit of selling to an hotel in Pera; so when any member of the Embassy passed a night in the town and dined at the said hotel, he always called for ‘Chateau Briant’! An old friend of Lord Ponsonby’s, who remained for some months on a visit at the Embassy, hearing of the scandalous manner in which Briant was accumulating money at the bank, thought it would be a friendly act to make known to his Lordship that which was in the mouth of every one—Briant’s system of peculation. He did so. Lord Ponsonby thanked him for the information and observed, ‘How much do you think Briant robs annually and deposits in the bank?’
‘At least £1000 a year,’ his friend replied.
‘Pray,’ said Lord Ponsonby, ‘pray keep what has passed between us most secret; I had thought Briant’s pilferings far exceeded that sum. I would not, for double that amount, lose such an excellent chef. Keep it secret, Mr. ———, keep it secret!’
Though he may not have possessed the brilliant talents of his successor, the great ‘Elchi,’ Lord Ponsonby acted with much energy, decision, and success in carrying out the views which he knew were entertained by that most admirable of statesmen, Lord Palmerston, regarding the Turkish Empire at the time when Mehemet Ali, backed by France, was seeking to declare his independence, and to place Egypt under the aegis of the latter power; to attain which object has been, and is, the aim of France even up to the present day.
The Sultan, Abdul Mijid, and his Minister, Reshid Pasha, accepted thankfully and unreservedly the dictum of Lord Ponsonby in all questions—and as long as Palmerston was at the head of foreign affairs, Lord Ponsonby carried out his views in the East without a check, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition made by the French Ambassador, Monsieur Pontet, and the constant threat that extreme measures would be adopted by France under certain contingencies; but when Lord Aberdeen came into power and sought to pursue a conciliatory policy towards France, Lord Ponsonby received dispatches, couched in a spirit which pointed out distinctly that he should moderate his action in support of the Sultan against Mehemet Ali’s pretensions. From private letters that Lord Ponsonby received from friends at home, he knew more or less what was the tenor of the instructions contained in those dispatches, so he did not break the seals but continued to follow up vigorously the same policy as before, until the object he had in view, viz., Mehemet Ali’s submission to the Porte, was achieved, and then Lord Ponsonby retired, or was required to retire.
It happened one day that I was standing near the Ambassador at his writing-table whilst he was giving me directions to convey a message to an Armenian banker of the Porte, upon a monetary question affecting the interests of the Turkish Government. He pulled open the drawer of the table at which he was seated to get out a paper, and I caught a glimpse of several sealed dispatches, addressed to his Excellency, from the Foreign Office. Lord Ponsonby, whilst closing the drawer, perceiving, as I suppose, an expression of surprise on my face, looked up with a smile, and re-opening the drawer, said, ‘You are astonished, Mr. Hay, at seeing such a number of Foreign Office dispatches lying here unopened: so am I!—for though I had certainly left in this drawer a few sealed letters, they have since been breeding;’ adding, whilst he re-closed the drawer, ‘Let them breed!’
Those were days when an Ambassador possessed extraordinary powers, and could carry out a policy which he considered best for the interests of his country, without allowing himself to be fettered by the vacillating views of Government and be moved—as now happens—like a puppet, by telegraph wires or other rapid means of communication.
In pursuance of instructions received from Lord Ponsonby, I called on the Armenian banker, before mentioned, at his private dwelling. This was a beautiful house, fitted up in the same manner as was then usual with Turks, for the Armenians of Constantinople at that time adopted the Turkish mode of living. The Armenian women veiled their faces and wore costumes similar to those of the Mohammedans, except that their slippers were red, whereas those used by Turkish females were yellow.
After making known to the porter who I was, and that I had come upon an errand from the Ambassador, the old banker came to meet me, led me to a room set apart for receiving his guests, and seated me on a luxurious divan. He was attired in a handsome Armenian costume, wearing a black head-dress much like an inverted iron cauldron.