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

87 страница из 90

The inadvisability of further inaction thus borne in upon our Ambassador from more quarters than one, he hurried on his preparations for the trip to Adrianople.

It was “a grand equipment,” and the task of providing the thousand and one things needed for it—tents, horses for saddle and carriage, hired servants, and so forth—devolved on the Levant Company’s Treasurer. The Ambassador was far too great a man to concern himself about matters of this sort. He serenely abandoned to Dudley North all the drudgery, and, with the drudgery, all the amusement and emolument. North enjoyed both. The only matters connected with the expedition that Sir John seems to have considered worthy of his care were matters which gave rise to points of honour—sundry acts of commission or omission, mere pinholes, maybe, to the ordinary eye; significant enough to one whose guiding maxim was, “Never to part with the least Puntiglio of the King’s Honour.”

Signor Antonio at Adrianople demanded a Command for the Kaimakam of Constantinople to supply the Ambassador with carts. The Command was issued, but it was worded in a way which suggested that the Porte had been annoyed by Sir John’s delay in presenting his Credentials: the Kaimakam was ordered to send the Ambassador to Audience. Signor Antonio returned the document, saying that his Excellency would never come on such terms: why should he be sent, when he had offered to come? The phrasing was altered accordingly. But when the Command reached Constantinople, Sir John found himself obliged to fight for the King’s honour on another “puntiglio.” The Kaimakam allotted him thirty carts, as he had done to his predecessor (Harvey, it would seem from this as well as from other instances, was not very sensitive on “puntiglios”—but then he had not the advantage of an Italian education). On being informed that the French Ambassador, when he went to Adrianople, had double that number, Sir John declared that he “was an Ambassadour of no lesse King, and had as good a Retinue,” consequently he required an equal number of carts. The Kaimakam said it was true that Nointel had been assigned sixty, but had been content with fifty. Very well, was Sir John’s rejoinder, “I would have the same assignment to me and I would be content with fifty-five.”ssss1