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

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The directors of the Levant Company in London were not slow to realise the gravity of the situation. As soon as official reports from the Consuls at Leghorn and Tripoli reached them, they petitioned the King to write to the Great Duke and to demand complete restitution of the Pasha’s property and reparation for damages, with due punishment of “so notorious an offender.”ssss1 The King hastened to indite an epistle in that sense to the Duke,ssss1 and, at the same time, instructed Sir John Finch, then on his way out, to repair to Florence and make the necessary representations to his Highness by word of mouth. These instructions found Finch at Genoa; and he applied himself to the task with energy, anxiety for his own future in Turkey lending a spur to his concern for the public good.

In order to simplify matters, he procured, before leaving Genoa, the banishment of the corsair from that State, and then proceeded to Leghorn. There he found an Aga whom the Pasha of Tunis was sending to England as his Procurator on that very business. When he heard of Finch’s arrival, the Aga thought to save himself the journey to London by laying his case before him. Finch made the most of this lucky encounter. Concealing from the Aga his instructions, he gave the affair a totally different turn. The Mediterranean, he argued, was not an English ship. It is true that her Master, Captain Chaplyn, was an Englishman; but he had changed his religion, renounced his country, and, having for ten years lived at Leghorn and married there, had become a Tuscan subject, so that his Majesty of England was no longer concerned in him. With these “and other motives” (a delicate euphemism for the motive vulgarly known as bribery), the Ambassador prevailed on the Aga to give him a declaration in writing, attested by public notaries, that he had no claim upon Captain Chaplyn or any other Englishman; only, as Finch was accredited to the Porte, it would be taken very kindly of him if he would assist a Pasha in distress, the more as he lay under no obligation to do so. Having had this document signed and sealed, the resourceful diplomat approached the Duke in another way—the way dictated by the facts of the case and his instructions.