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

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The Barbary States still were, at least in name, parts of the Ottoman Empire. When their enormities were brought to the notice of the Porte by European ambassadors, the Grand Signor’s Ministers professed themselves greatly shocked. But what would you? they said. The Barbary people were rebels for whose sins the Grand Signor could not be held responsible. When the ambassador requested that, such being the case, the Grand Signor should not consider himself aggrieved if his master should take his own vengeance and right his own wrongs, the Ministers used to answer that it was only just that malefactors should suffer and that those who inflicted injuries on others should receive injuries themselves. But the Grand Signor could not see with indifference his vassal States attacked: the utmost he would permit was reprisals on pirate ships afloat—an assault on the towns ashore would be regarded as an act of hostility against himself. Hence, every time an English fleet came forth to punish the African rogues, the English in Turkey trembled lest it should do something that might draw the Sultan’s wrath down upon them. Such was the situation created in 1661 by Sir John Lawson’s, and in 1669-71 by Sir Thomas Allin’s and Sir Edward Spragge’s expeditions against Algiers.ssss1 As Winchilsea and Harvey on those occasions, so Finch now had to bestir himself to prevent disagreeable developments. He began by transmitting the news of the rupture with Tripoli to the Grand Vizir, “that it might not be thought His Majesty Our Master had broken with those Vile People an Agreement subscribd’ by both Monarchs, but according to the Tenour of the Articles.”ssss1