Читать книгу Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681 онлайн

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To these traits, common among lawyers, he added a genuine love of justice and a scrupulous integrity rare among lawyers everywhere, and nowhere rarer than in the East. Endowed with such qualities, Ahmed proved himself one of the most moderate, and, at the same time, one of the least pliant Ministers that Turkey ever knew. Under his firm and equitable administration the Ottoman Empire recovered some of its prosperity, and, what is more pertinent to note here, the Frank residents enjoyed a Sabbath of rest. Tyranny, of course, could not be altogether avoided. But, on the whole, the privileges conferred upon them by their Capitulations were respected, extortions (avanias) were seldom indulged in with impunity, and the foreign merchants were treated with unexampled forbearance.ssss1 Towards the English the Grand Vizir was particularly well disposed, and with good reason.

The main principle of Charles II.’s policy in foreign as in domestic affairs was to avoid friction. Indolent, unambitious, and a hater of everything likely to disturb the even flow of his voluptuous existence, the Merry Monarch would sooner have surrendered his rights than have taken the trouble to defend them. No prince ever stood less upon his dignity; perhaps because no prince ever had less dignity to stand upon. In the course of their protracted struggle for the conquest of Candia, the Turks repeatedly pressed English ships into their service. Cromwell had opposed vigorously all encroachments of the sort; but the representatives of Charles, after some feeble and ineffectual protests, not only acquiesced tamely, but bitterly blamed those captains who ventured to resist; and, while the Grand Signor violated the neutrality of England, the English Secretary of State overwhelmed him with assurances that his Majesty “does inviolably observe his peace with the Grand Signior.”ssss1 Nor were these empty assurances. Individual Englishmen might assist the Venetians in what contemporary Christendom regarded as a holy war, but, unlike the French, whose volunteers passed on in a steady stream from Paris itself to reinforce the garrison of Candia, they did so at their own risk and peril without the least countenance from their Government. Indeed, such crusaders were so few and far between that Ahmed Kuprili commented on the fact that he did not find “soe much as an English seaman amongst his enemies att Candia.”ssss1