The crowds which the necessity of purchasing bread brought together at certain hours, when assembled, naturally entered into the discussion of their present discontents. They were not satisfied with the discourse and jostling of the morning; the habits produced by these noisy assemblies had a secret charm with them, and drew them together at seasons of less urgent demand. They patroled the streets: they were loud in the expressions of their dissatisfaction. With the inconsequence incident to the lower orders of mankind, they threatened to destroy the mills, the markets, the places of sale, the means and materials by which their wants were to be supplied.
In the midst of these scenes of tumult and confusion, it is not to be imagined that I escaped uncensured. Far otherwise: in proportion to the gratitude and adoration with which they had lately regarded me, were their detestation and abhorrence now. My interference was spoken of with contempt and execration. For what purpose had I, a foreigner, come into their country, and intruded myself into their affairs? Why had I impiously taken them out of the hands of their heavenly Father, whose care was so constant, and whose relief so certain? It was on my part a despicable vanity and presumption, which the justice of Providence could not fail to avenge; and they must now suffer the punishment of my blasphemy. But they did not stop here. There was no horrible calumny which they did not invent, or give credit to, against me. They imputed to me the basest personal motives for what I had done. Under the hypocritical pretence, they cried, of being their benefactor and saviour, I was using them only for my private ends. I had become a purchaser and vender of corn, for the single purpose of increasing my fortune. The present scarcity, they were well assured, was artificial, and of my own contriving. I had magazines in different stations on the borders, which, when the price was risen to the standard of my avarice, and when half the people had fallen victims to my inhumanity, I purposed to dispose of to an immense profit.
Such were the aspersions to which my character became generally exposed. By the populace, who now experienced the unsatisfied cravings of hunger, and in whom my proceedings had excited hope, only to be followed by a more cruel disappointment, they were greedily credited. Many who knew their falsehood, were yet zealous to propagate them. Short as had been my residence in Hungary, I had made many enemies. It is to be feared that no man can be assiduous and indefatigable in the service of others, without incurring that consequence. I employed a great number of workmen; every one whom for whatever reason I refused to employ, every one who, being unqualified for the service I required, looked with an envious eye on the better fortune of his neighbour, was well disposed to be my enemy. Persons of no contemptible account in the community had been excited by expectations of profit to engage in the importation of corn: these persons viewed my efforts in the same department with a suspicious eye, and regarded a man who, however cautious in his proceedings, was not regulated by the same motive, as a most pernicious rival. My sudden elevation and importance in the country were viewed with not more astonishment than aversion by those whose importance I obscured. They could not hear with patience of an upstart, a boy, a stranger, one universally unknown, elbowing out the influence of all that was most illustrious and venerable in the community, and robbing them daily of their adherents and retainers. All these persons left no effort untried to defame my character.
The impulse once given, the turbulent disposition of the populace became every day more formidable. It is much easier to disseminate a temper of this sort than to quell it: my opulent foes might take alarm at its excesses, and desire to undo what they had done; but it was beyond their power. Every day I feared lest, from threats and invectives, the populace should proceed to violence: every night I thought I had reason to congratulate myself, that the day had passed without waste and spoil committed by them on the means of their subsistence, or was not marked with the destruction of their champion and benefactor. In some places a sort of petty sedition broke out among the labourers I employed: in the morning they refused to work: why should a man work, they muttered, when after all he may starve with the wages of his labour in his possession? At night they became impatient and furious, and demanded from my superintendents and storehouse-men the food, which in the morning they had refused to earn, and were therefore now unable to purchase. I had already had some experience in the nature of popular tumults; I had now no marchese Filosanto at hand to persuade me of their inefficacy; and, if I had, I should no longer have lent an ear to his serene and unsuspicious generosity. I felt the reality of the danger; I saw the storm as it blackened in my horizon, and was deeply convinced what it would be if it burst upon my head.
It may be imagined with what feelings I viewed my whole design on the point to be subverted, by the unruliness of those for whose benefit it had been planned. It is true I had now no darling relations to be involved in my fate, no incomparable wife, no daughters illustrious in innocence and beauty; yet my feelings were scarcely less pungent than they had been at the period of my catastrophe at Pisa. I had blamed myself in review, that, in my experiments at Constance, at Dresden, at Pisa, and at Madrid, I had not commenced upon a sufficiently ample scale, but had suffered myself to be frustrated by the ingloriousness of my precautions. That had not been my error in the present instance; yet my success now promised to be scarcely more flattering than upon former occasions. I had looked for happiness as the result of the benevolence and philanthropy I was exerting; I found only anxiety and a well grounded fear even for my personal safety. Let no man build on the expected gratitude of those he spends his strength to serve! Let him be beneficent if he will; but let him not depend for his happiness on the conviction of his rectitude and virtue that is to be impressed on the minds of others! There is a principle in the human breast, that easily induces them to regard every thing that can be done for them, as no more than their due, and speedily discharges them from the oppressive consciousness of obligation. There is a levity in the generality of men, that entails on them a continual oblivion of past benefits, and makes one recent disappointment of more importance in their eyes than an eternity of kindnesses and condescension. I shall have other instances of ingratitude to display in what yet remains to be related of my story.
My nights were restless; my thoughts were in arms. What was it that it became me to do in the present emergency? Sometimes, in the bitterness of my heart, hating myself, hating the endowments of the stranger, hating a race of beings who denied all credit to the most unheard-of exertions for their advantage, I determined to withdraw unobserved from my attendants and clients, and bid adieu to Hungary for ever. But whither was I to fly? What was I to do next? What experiment could I make of the purposes to which to apply the philosopher’s stone, that I had not already made? These questions, to none of which I could give a satisfactory answer, checked the career of my passion, and gave pause to my thoughts.
Whatever I did, I was determined to do nothing rashly, nor to quit a great experiment without its having been fully tried. It was no light concern, no trivial child’s-play, in which I had embarked. I had taken the welfare, perhaps the existence, of a great and heroic nation under my protection. In this glorious vocation it did not become me to be lightly discouraged. What if those I served and saved did not show themselves sufficiently sensible to the exertions I made for them? I ought to purify my bosom, on an occasion like this, from base and ignoble motives, and to deem myself sufficiently recompensed by my conscious virtue. What if the service in which I had engaged now appeared to be a service of hazard and peril? Is there any great undertaking that can be separated from this condition? If hastily, from cowardice, from pique, or from any other motive, I deserted the business on which I had entered, what was to become of my mistaken indeed, but in that case most unfortunate clients? The greater was the crisis to which they were exposed, the more were unremitted vigilance and uncommon powers necessary to guide them amidst its rocks and its quicksands. I saw thousands of men who for several weeks had fed, as it were, from the stores of my bounty. By a propensity inseparable from the human heart, I became attached to the work of my meditations, and the labour of my thoughts. All their fickleness, their injustice, even the atrocious calumnies they admitted and propagated against me, could not wean my attachment from beings, a great portion of whom, but for my interference, would, I believed, long ere this have expired of hunger.
In the peculiar and urgent circumstances in which I found myself, no expedient was so obvious as that of calling in the interference of the government under which I lived. It was necessary that the resources of national subsistence should be defended from the wanton spoil of those who, when they were annihilated, must inevitably perish. It was necessary that the benefactor of Hungary, who, I flattered myself, was still able to watch effectively for her advantage, should be protected from her misguided resentment. The alternative was singularly painful to my feelings. The pride with which my unparalleled endowments inspired me, was deeply wounded, when I was compelled to confess that I was not alone equal to the task I had undertaken, and that I must submit to call in a foreign auxiliary. I augured little favourable from the interference of government, which, if I implored, I could scarcely expect to guide, which was not likely to submit to my principle of rendering its interference the mildest and smallest that the nature of the case would admit; but, puffed up with presumption, and intoxicated with authority, would probably leave no concern of the public welfare uninvaded. Least of all, could I anticipate much of good from a Turkish government. But what could I do? I could discover no other expedient. Influenced by the views I have recited, I had hitherto kept myself as far from the observation of the political directors of the state as I could. But my cautiousness and reserve were now at an end. With my eyes open I exposed myself to all the evils that might attend on my proceeding.
I determined to apply to the bashaw of the province. Previously to my taking this step, I had the precaution to enquire his character. He was the genuine offspring of the Turkish system of government. His name was Muzaffer Bey. He was originally a Circassian slave; then a Janissary; and, rising by insensible gradation, had at length been appointed bashaw of Buda, which, as being the immediate frontier between Austria and the Porte, was at this time the most arduous situation in the gift of the sultan. He was esteemed a good soldier; he had been early distinguished by his dexterity in military exercises; he had since seen much service; and, in every situation in which he was placed, had earned commendation and honour. He was abstemious and hardy; for himself, he neither pampered his appetites nor shrunk from severity; and he had as little indulgence for those under his command as for his own person. Yet he was indebted for his present eminence more to the arts of the courtier, than to his merits in the field. His chief care had ever been to recommend himself to those above him, and to obtain the good will of his equals; for the opinion of his inferiors he gave himself little concern. With considerable ability, he laboured under no check from either principle or ingenuous pride; and therefore was extremely successful in his attacks on the inclination of those he sought. The habits of his mind had modified the lines of his countenance and the tones of his voice. Except to his dependants and the poor he almost always spoke with a smile upon his face, and his enunciation was silver-tongued, oily, copious, and insinuating. If he ever adopted a different manner, the variation was only in the means not the end; and, when he seemed to travel by an opposite road, the goal at which he aimed was the same. He never consulted any oracle but that of his apparent interest; if he had any insolence in his nature, he regarded his slaves and those under his military command as affording a sufficient sphere for its exercise; he had no affections to disturb him from his bent; he had no passions but the self-complacency of superior cunning, and the sordid love of pelf.
This account of the man with whom I had to deal was far from encouraging; but I had no alternative. I sent to signify my desire to confer with him; or, to speak more accurately, to ask, in the Eastern manner when it would be agreeable to him to receive a present of which I requested his acceptance. He appointed the morning of the following day. I prepared a gift, such as might tend to conciliate his favour, without marking in the donor the possession of immoderate wealth. It consisted of silks and muslins, with a small piece of plate of exquisite workmanship. My present was borne by two of my servants. We were ushered to the bashaw in his private apartment; there were two or three persons in attendance upon him. They examined my present together; and, without condescending to express much approbation, I could nevertheless discern that the bashaw was pleased with it. This ceremony concluded; Muzaffer ordered what I had brought to be taken into a different apartment; and, every other person withdrawing, we were left alone.