[CHAP. XX.]
Campaign of Pruth.
Sultan Achmet III. declared war against Peter I. not from any regard to the king of Sweden, but, as may readily be supposed, merely from a view to his own interest. The Khan of the Crim Tartars could not without dread, behold a neighbour so powerful as Peter I. The Porte had, for some time, taken umbrage at the number of ships which this prince had on the Palus Mæotis, and in the Black Sea, at his fortifying the city of Azoph, and at the flourishing state of the harbour of Taganroc, already become famous; and, lastly, at his great series of successes, and at the ambition which success never fails to augment.
It is neither true, nor even probable, that the Porte should have begun the war against the czar, on the Palus Mæotis, for no other reason than because a Swedish ship had taken a bark on the Baltic, on board of which was found a letter from a minister, whose name has never been mentioned. Norberg tells us, that this letter contained a plan for the conquest of the Turkish empire; that it was carried to Charles XII. who was then in Turkey, and was by him sent to the divan; and that immediately after the receipt of this letter, war was declared. But this story carries the mark of fiction with it. It was the remonstrances of the khan of Tartary, who was more uneasy about the neighbourhood of Azoph, than the Turkish divan, that induced this latter to give orders for taking the field.[83]
It was in the month of August, and before the czar had completed the reduction of Livonia, when Achmet III. resolved to declare war against him. The Turks, at that time, could hardly have had the news of the taking of Riga; and, therefore, the proposal of restoring to the king of Sweden the value in money, of the effects he had lost at the battle of Pultowa, would have been the most absurd thing imaginable, if not exceeded by that of demolishing Petersburg. The behaviour of Charles XII. at Bender, was sufficiently romantic; but the conduct of the Turkish divan would have been much more so, if we suppose it to have made any demands of this kind.
Nov. 1710.] The khan of Tartary, who was the principal instigator of this war, paid Charles a visit in his retreat at Bender. They were connected by the same interests, inasmuch as Europe makes part of the frontiers of Little Tartary. Charles and the khan were the two greatest sufferers by the successes of the czar; but the khan did not command the forces of the grand seignior. He was like one of the feudatory princes of Germany, who served in the armies of the empire with their own troops, and were subject to the authority of the emperor's generals for the time being.
Nov. 29, 1710.] The first step taken by the divan, was to arrest Tolstoy, the czar's ambassador at the Porte, in the streets of Constantinople, together with thirty of his domestics, who, with their master, were all confined in the prison of the Seven Towers. This barbarous custom, at which even savages would blush, is owing to the Turks having always a number of foreign ministers residing amongst them from other courts, whereas they never send any in return. They look upon the ambassadors of Christian princes in no other light than as merchants or consuls; and, having naturally as great a contempt for Christians as they have for Jews, they seldom condescend to observe the laws of nations, in respect to them, unless forced to it; at least, they have hitherto persisted in this barbarous pride.
The famous vizier, Achmet Couprougli, the same who took the island of Candia, under Mahomet IV., insulted the son of the French ambassador, and even carried his brutality so far as to strike him, and afterwards to confine him in prison, without Lewis XIV., proud and lofty as he was, daring to resent it, otherwise than by sending another minister to the Porte. The Christian princes, who are so remarkably delicate on the point of honour amongst themselves, and have even made it a part of the law of nations, seem to be utterly insensible on this head in regard to the Turks.