Читать книгу Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681 - G. F. Abbott - Страница 12

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Not the least of the many features that differentiated the Constantinople Embassy from all other embassies was the institution of the Dragomans[54]—persons through whom all transactions with the Porte were carried on and upon whom therefore the Ambassador had to depend for the most essential part of his work. The Dragomans, in their dual capacity of Intelligencers and Interpreters, had always been important members of the Embassy staff. But their importance had increased immeasurably since the Elizabethan tradition of appointing ambassadors who had served their apprenticeship as secretaries to their predecessors had yielded to the practice of sending out diplomats new to Turkey, her language, and her ways. Cut off from direct contact with the country, the Ambassador now relied almost entirely upon his Dragomans’ reports. The Dragomans were his eyes and his ears, as well as his mouth: they were, in fact, absolute masters of business and of their employer.

The system laboured under the usual disadvantages of dealing by proxy, and a good many more peculiar to Turkey. As Intelligencers the Dragomans were not all that might have been desired: their information was often inaccurate, and sometimes, when information failed, they, in order to keep up their reputation for omniscience, had recourse to invention. Our Ambassadors had already learnt from experience to receive their news with extreme caution.[55] Hardly more satisfactory were the Dragomans in their character of Interpreters. Absurd as it may sound, the persons who performed this most delicate and confidential function were not subjects of the sovereign they served, but of the Grand Signor: natives of Pera, mostly of Italian extraction. This rendered them very indifferent vehicles of the ambassadorial mind. When the message with which they were charged happened to be disagreeable to the Porte, they manifested the strongest disinclination to deliver it. Fear tied their tongues: they would much rather risk their employer’s displeasure than the brutal fury of an angry pasha. There was nothing to wonder at in this: Dragomans had often been drubbed, sometimes even hanged or impaled, for doing their duty. So real was the danger and so powerless was the Ambassador to protect his own servants against the savagery of their liege lords that even in his presence the Dragomans dared not translate faithfully his words, if they were of a nature to irritate his Turkish collocutor. At the mere sound of such words, they were seized with panic: their faces grew red and white by turns, their foreheads were covered with beads of sweat, their limbs trembled, their mouths went suddenly dry—as if they already felt the stick on the soles of their feet or the halter round their necks. It was no unusual thing to see the Dragoman of a European Ambassador, after stammering out an expurgated version of the message, drop on his knees before the Turkish Minister and burst into abject apologies for his temerity. At times, ingenious interpreters gifted with presence of mind were known to improvise imaginary dialogues—to substitute speeches of their own inspiration for those really made by the parties on whose behalf they acted. The position was both tragic and ludicrous; but no ambassador not utterly devoid of reason and humanity could complain. He himself, if he were in the Dragoman’s shoes, would behave as the Dragoman behaved. Even as it was, despite his non-subjection to the Grand Signor, despite also the theoretical inviolability of his person, a prudent ambassador shrank from irritating a Turkish pasha: envoys of various Powers who had forgotten to hold their tongues had been affronted, assaulted, dragged down the stairs by the hair of their heads, imprisoned in noisome dungeons. All things considered, the wonder is not so much that the Dragomans fulfilled their perilous task inadequately, as that they dared undertake it at all.

Other inconveniences connected with the system enhanced its inherent viciousness. The Dragomans of the English Embassy were Roman Catholics, and as all Roman Catholics in Turkey were protected by the representatives of the Catholic Powers, they were so much biassed in favour of their patrons that, when the interests of England clashed with those of a Catholic Power, the English Ambassador could scarcely trust them. Again, the Dragomans were often men with large families, and they were very poorly paid. The temptation therefore to betray their trust for money was hard to resist. Further, motives of religious sympathy and cupidity apart, there was the lure of vanity which frequently impelled a Dragoman to babble out the secrets of his employer in order to show his own importance. As if to multiply the dangers of indiscretion, Dragomans serving different ambassadors were often nearly related to one another, or a Dragoman who served one embassy at one time might later on transfer his services to its rival. It was even possible for a Dragoman of an embassy to become a Dragoman of the Porte, or, while employed by the embassy, to have a kinsman similarly employed at the Porte. How secrecy and fidelity under such conditions could ever be looked for it is not easy to understand.

The vices of the system were flagrant; but the difficulty of finding a remedy was no less great. An interpreter to do his duty satisfactorily had to be both competent and courageous. But no interpreter, under the Turkish rule, could possess both these qualifications in the same degree. If he was a foreigner, he could not have the necessary knowledge of the Turkish language, customs, and character. If he was a native, he could not have the necessary courage. The French, whose Dragomans had suffered most grievously from Turkish ferocity, were the only European nation to attempt a solution of the problem. Their great Minister Colbert had, a few years since, initiated a reform by sending twelve young Frenchmen to Smyrna, there to be taught in the Convent of the Capuchins Turkish, Arabic, and Modern Greek, and then be distributed among the French Consulates, the ablest of them being destined for the service of the Embassy. This departure secured to the Diplomatic and Consular services of France in the Levant a supply of interpreters who, though they might not possess a native’s intimacy with Turkish ways, could be trusted to carry out their instructions honestly and boldly. The advantage gained by this change was so patent, that the best-informed Englishmen hastened to recommend its adoption;[56] and, in fact, it was adopted by England—two hundred years later.

Meanwhile, Sir John Finch had to work through his Perote, Italian-speaking “Druggermen.” The chief of them, Signor Giorgio Draperys, “knight of Jerusalem, and of the most noble and ancient family in this country,”[57] was a man well stricken in years. He had served the English Embassy for half a century, and had witnessed all its vicissitudes under six different occupants. His long and varied experience made Signor Giorgio invaluable to a novice: no man had a more thorough acquaintance with the rules of Turkish procedure or with the usages and precedents that governed the mutual intercourse of foreign envoys than this Patriarch of Pera. His honesty was not above the normal. For instance, a Prince of Moldavia, who owed his elevation to Lord Winchilsea, presented the Dragoman with 6000 sheep for himself, and with 12,000 sheep—as well as 4000 crowns in cash, a ring worth 1000 crowns, and a horse worth 300 crowns—for the Ambassador. There is reason to believe that none of these tokens of Moldavian gratitude ever reached His Excellency.[58] Of the second Dragoman, Signor Antonio Perone, who eventually succeeded Signor Giorgio, we shall hear enough in the course of this story.

In addition, Sir John had an English Secretary, a Mr. William Carpenter, of whom little more than the name is known to us; and, besides, he was assisted by the Levant Company’s Cancellier, an officer whose business it was to draw up all legal documents and to register them in the Embassy Cancellaria. This office was at the time filled by Mr. Thomas Coke, a man small in stature, but, it would seem, of great ability and amiability.[59]

Three other Englishmen with whom business brought Sir John into frequent contact were personages sufficiently notable in themselves, and they play sufficiently prominent parts in our story to deserve special notice.

Paul Rycaut Esq. late Consul of Smyrna; Fellow of the Royall Societie. From the Engraving by R. White after the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely.

To face p. 53.

At Smyrna he had met our distinguished Consul, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Paul Rycaut, a graduate of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an author of European reputation. As his name implies, Rycaut was of foreign extraction—the son of a wealthy banker of Brabant who, having settled in England under James I. and ruined himself for Charles I., died leaving a large family all but destitute. It fell to the lot of Paul to provide by his labours for most of these victims of Loyalty. After six arduous years at the Constantinople Embassy, as Secretary to Lord Winchilsea—who found him “so modest, discreet, able, temperate and faithfull” that he transferred him from the steward’s table to his own and treated him “more like a friend than a servant”[60]—he obtained from the Levant Company the Consulate of Smyrna. Important and lucrative as this post was, it was hardly one of those that give tranquillity to an ambitious heart or enjoyment to a cultivated mind. While performing its duties with exemplary energy and conscientiousness, Rycaut looked upon it as a stepping-stone to higher things. In 1666, during a long visit home on public business, he had brought himself to the notice of the Court by his work on The Present State of the Ottoman Empire—a book which, running into many editions and translated into French, Italian, German, and Polish, made the author famous,[61] without, however, making him what he wished to be. Lord Arlington testified to Rycaut’s “good parts” and other good qualities,[62] but did nothing for him. We may congratulate ourselves that his promotion was postponed so long; to that circumstance we are indebted for much valuable information. But Rycaut had small cause to feel pleased. The Smyrna Consulate cramped him like a prison cell. His discontent is written as plain as large print can make it in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to the History of the Turkish Empire which he published a few years later: “Ever since the time of Your Majesties happy Restauration,” he grumbles, “my Lot hath fallen to live and act within the Dominions of the Turk.” The same feeling is not less plain in the portrait (a fine engraving after Sir Peter Lely) which adorns the volume. It shows us a refined face that combines the irritability of a scholar with the keenness of a place-hunter; an emaciated face with eyes large, expressive and aggressive, thin lips tightly pressed, and a chin of remarkable pugnacity—the face of a man determined to get on and very angry at Fortune’s slow pace. It is said to resemble Molière’s. The resemblance certainly does not extend to a sense of humour. Perhaps it was this want (for assuredly it was not want of push) that condemned a person of Rycaut’s abilities and attainments to rust in the Consulate of Smyrna, when his intellectual inferiors became Secretaries of State in London. Charles II. had little use for men who could not laugh.

Many were the prickly problems that Sir John Finch and Mr. Paul Rycaut had to handle together during the next few years; and on all occasions the Ambassador found a most loyal and respectful lieutenant in this highly accomplished and polished Cavalier.

Of quite a different mould was the Rev. John Covel, Chaplain to the Embassy and afterwards Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. Like Finch and Baines, Covel hailed from Christ’s College. Like them, too, he had studied Medicine in early life, but eventually discovering an easier vocation, he threw physic to the dogs, took holy orders, and got a Fellowship at his College. To him also, as to the others, the Restoration had come as a providential blessing: witness the Latin prose and English verse wherein he vented his feelings. The merits of his Latin performance were such as might have been expected from an erudite young don. Those of his English effusion may be judged by the following sample:

The horrible winter’s gone,

And we enjoy a cheerful spring;

The kind approach of the Sun

Gives a new birth to every thing.

Among other things, it gave a new birth to the songster’s prospects.

In 1670 an adventure beckoned the Rev. John from afar, and his heart leapt to greet it. The Constantinople chaplaincy had fallen vacant by the retirement of the learned Dr. Thomas Smith (known to history as “Rabbi” Smith). There was the romance of the East with its new skies and seas and lands; there were curious old creeds to be investigated, a strange world of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Franks, with their various ways of life: by all means let us go! He obtained the appointment from the Levant Company, and from the King a dispensation which enabled him to retain his Fellowship at the same time. Thus, while drawing at Constantinople a handsome salary and considerable perquisites for the little he did, our lucky divine also received from Cambridge, for doing nothing at all, “all and singular the profits, dividends, stipends, emoluments, and dues belonging to his Fellowship in as full and ample manner to all intents and purposes as if he were actually resident in the College.”[63]

It may be doubted whether a happier Englishman ever trod the soil of the Grand Signor than the Rev. John. He revelled in the rich colours and savours of the Levant. The ceremonies of the Turkish Court and the rites of the Greek Church were a perennial fountain of interest to him, while the noisy wrangles of theology touched a vibrant chord in his sympathetic breast. Did Eastern Christians believe that the bread and wine in the Eucharist turned into flesh and blood, or did they believe that it remained bread and wine? This riddle raged just then at Constantinople; and the reverberations of the controversy, expanding in wider and yet wider circles, reached Rome, Paris, London, stirring up everywhere suitably attuned minds to intense, passionate, and to us almost incomprehensible virulence. The Rev. John plunged into the transubstantial vortex with all the polemical zest of a theologian and with a vague notion of writing a big book about it one day. He discussed the holy and unwholesome question with everybody—Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant—he could lay hands on, always ending at the point whence he started—the creed of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Not less eagerly did our Chaplain plunge into the ecclesiastical politics than into the metaphysical polemics of the place. The age-long feud between Greek and Latin was then blended with the squabbles of rival Greek pretenders to the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople: Patriarchs arose and Patriarchs fell as Grand Vizirs did formerly; anathematising their predecessors cordially and being as cordially anathematised by their successors, to the Rev. John’s indescribable delight.[64] That was life, pardieu—the absorbing interplay of warm human hearts and even warmer human heads.

Though Covel devoted some attention to archaeology, it was with a lack of interest which he is at no pains to conceal. He could hardly express his scorn for the “whiflers” who came out of England and France and careered over the Ottoman Empire buying or stealing classical antiques. The lore he really loved was folklore: Greek legends, Turkish songs, living superstitions. If we except manuscripts dealing with early Heresies, for which he had a passion (even the sanest of us are mad), the Rev. John only collected curios that appealed to his sense of the beautiful—if he came across them cheap. For the same reason he had an appreciative eye for costumes, jewels, carpets, and other articles of personal or domestic adornment: they all served to make life pleasant. On all these topics our Chaplain would talk and scribble with unflagging volubility—“at full gallop,” to use his own racy simile—repeating himself, digressing, returning to the subject, straying from it again, losing himself in a labyrinth of minute irrelevancies. Fond of shooting and riding, a friend of gay young men and no enemy to gay young women, especially pretty ones, the Rev. John was immensely popular with our factors, who found in him a “papas”[65] after their own hearts.

To the Ambassador also the Rev. John was very acceptable. Going everywhere, seeing everybody, and hearing everything, the divine had much to say that was useful for a diplomat to know, particularly about Greek Patriarchs, Latin friars and their quarrels; a subject, as we shall see hereafter, by no means foreign to an English ambassador’s business in those days. Precluded by his dignity from crossing the water in person, Sir John could employ the Rev. John as a channel of communication between Pera and the Phanar. And the Rev. John, as one gathers from his own voluminous writings, was versatile enough to act as the friend of all contending parties in turn, according to the exigencies of the political vane, far too worldly-wise to let consistency interfere with preferment. For Covel, though content with the present, never forgot the future; he was not less anxious to get on than Rycaut, only built on softer, more supple and sinuous lines, he glided where the other stumbled.[66] Altogether an astonishingly brisk, jovial, garrulous parson of six-and-thirty this, full of harmless little vanities, human levities, and healthy little profanities.

But the most striking personality among the English residents, and the one Sir John Finch had most to do with, was the Treasurer of the Levant Company at Constantinople, the Honourable (afterwards Sir) Dudley North, younger son of Lord North,—a handsome man of thirty-three, already eminent and destined to be famous. In literary attainments North fell far short of Rycaut and Covel, but in natural intelligence, in initiative, in resource, in tenacity, in self-command, in knowledge of the world, and in the other qualities which conduce to success in life, he was surpassed by no man of his time. His career is one of the most deeply interesting documents that have come down to us from the seventeenth century; even episodes apparently trifling in themselves become full of meaning when viewed in connection with the general character of the times.

Like all younger sons Dudley had to carve his own way to independence. One of his brothers went to the Bar,—ending as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in succession to Sir John Finch’s own brother,—another went into the Church. Dudley might have followed in the footsteps of either. But the Bar required much reading, the Church imposed many restraints. Dudley, not studious enough for the one profession and too lively for the other, revealed at an early age the calling for which Nature designed him. At school, while proving himself a hopeless dunce at book-work, he drove a most profitable trade among the other boys, buying cheap and selling dear. Manifestly commerce was his metier.

In seventeenth-century England no social cleavage existed between the world of commerce and the world of the Court. Since Feudalism had expired in the Wars of the Roses, differences of birth had ceased to divide the landed from the moneyed classes. All the county families had their kinsmen in the towns, and the ambition of many a nobleman’s younger son was to become an alderman, to attain which eminence he had to serve his apprenticeship behind the counter and to work with his hands like a menial. The snobbishness which again divides the two worlds in our day did not set in until the latter part of the eighteenth century. It is necessary to emphasise this fact in order to correct an erroneous impression promulgated by brilliant and superficial historians.[67]

So young Dudley was forthwith placed in a London “writing school” to acquire the arts of book-keeping and penmanship. At that school he gave further evidence of his financial genius by extricating himself from the clutches of his creditors through the simple device of presenting his noble parents with faked bills of expenses—not crudely, as an amateur might, but as a born artist would. The next step in our promising youth’s fortunes was his being bound apprentice to a Turkey Merchant. By this time Dudley, with remarkable precocity, had sown his wild oats and had made up his mind on the one thing needful. As his master’s limited business left him ample leisure, he employed it in helping his landlord, a packer, at the packing-press, whereby he not only eked out his slender allowance, but also acquired experience which was to be of great value to him—the skilful packing of cloth sent to Turkey being one of the first mysteries of the trade a novice had to master. His initiation over, North at the age of eighteen was sent out to Smyrna as a factor. For capital to trade with on his own account he had only four hundred pounds advanced him by his family, and he depended therefore chiefly on the commissions from his master, supplemented by an occasional order from some other Turkey Merchants he had ingratiated himself with in London by officiously doing odd jobs for them. These resources were very meagre, and the standard of living in the Smyrna Factory, as at the other Levant factories, was very high. Nowhere did conviviality reach greater heights.[68] With extraordinary strength of mind young North refused to bow to fashion. He lodged humbly, dressed plainly, fed simply, kept no horses, dogs, or hawks, made in every way a virtue of penury; his settled principle being to save abroad that he might one day be able to spend at home. From that principle neither the gibes of his fellows nor the impulses of his own young blood ever swayed him. Once the others pressed him very earnestly to go a-hunting with them. The wise youth, not to give offence, complied—but with characteristic originality, instead of buying a horse he hired an ass.

In this thrifty way, mindful of his high aim and philosophically indifferent to public opinion, North passed several years at Smyrna, working hard, thinking hard, conciliating by his wit the young whom his eccentricity would otherwise have alienated, earning by his capacity the respect of the old, and making his company sought after by “the top merchants of the Factory.” His letters are full of acute observations and mature reflections on all matters that fell within his vision. His curiosity was as voracious as Covel’s, but it did not feed on the external aspect of things. North took nothing for granted. He burnt with a desire to know the cause and reason of everything—from an earthquake to a fever, from the navigation of a ship or the construction of a building to the government of an empire. He was perpetually on the path of inquiry and discovery, never allowing his faculties to rest or rust. While engaged in the practice of commerce, he brought his vigorous analytical mind to bear on its underlying laws, striking out, in opposition to the generally accepted views of his day, a theory of trade which anticipated David Hume’s and Adam Smith’s economic philosophy by nearly a hundred years.

The chance for which North waited and prepared came at last. There was a celebrated house of English commission agents and merchants at Constantinople—the house of Messrs. Hedges and Palmer. Their business was very large, but through mismanagement it had fallen into the utmost confusion. North was invited to become a partner and set things straight. He jumped at the invitation. Through his doggedness, resourcefulness, and adroitness, old debts were recovered, compounded for, or written off, the book-keeping department was reorganised; and order was evolved out of chaos. As soon as Mr. Hedges saw the business fairly under way he retired to England at the beginning of 1670, leaving him and Palmer to carry on by themselves. Then the trouble began. Palmer was everything that North was not. He lived in a great house and at great expense. His table was loaded with plenty, and guests were never absent from it. They came at noon and spent the rest of the day helping their host to empty his bottles. By the time North had finished his work Palmer had finished his dinner. North returned home very tired and found his partner very drunk. After many unpleasant scenes, he took a strong line. He wrote to all the correspondents of the firm in Europe, explaining the reasons which led him to break with his partner and soliciting the continuance of their patronage to himself. His reputation stood so high, and apparently Palmer’s so low, that the principals did not hesitate.

This may be described as our Factor’s first stride. He was now captain of his own ship. Only, as English merchants did not care to trust single agents abroad, because on their deaths, or even in their lives, there was always danger of embezzlement, he thought fit to take into partnership his younger brother Montagu, who, like himself, had been bred a Turkey Merchant and then resided as factor at Aleppo. Henceforward North’s career was one continuous run of prosperity. He soon became the chief English merchant in Constantinople, was elected Treasurer by the Levant Company, and went on amassing wealth at a great rate, deeming no enterprise too high or too low for the end he had in view, imparting to everything he did a touch of his own original genius.

The ordinary Englishman in the polyglot Levant was content to transact his business through interpreters. North would have nothing to do with vicarious communication. He acquired Italian, which was the Lingua Franca of the Near East, the debased Spanish spoken by the Jews of Turkey—descendants of the refugees expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella—who had made themselves indispensable as brokers to Franks and Turks alike, and (a much rarer accomplishment) the Turkish tongue. Moreover, he learnt the laws of Turkey. In litigation before a Turkish court he was his own pleader, as in conversation he was his own interpreter. He did not, however, trust implicitly to his own intimacy with the subtleties of Ottoman Justice. He kept a tame Cadi to whose advice he had recourse upon occasion. Further, before a trial, he took care to make his case known to the judge and to quicken the judge’s intelligence with a present. When his case came on, if North had no true witnesses to produce, he produced false ones. Indeed, he preferred the latter kind on principle, having found by experience that a false witness was safer; for, if the judge had a mind to confuse a witness, an honest man who did not know the game could not so well wriggle through the net of captious questions as a rogue versed in all its rules.

The Honourable Dudley showed equal tact in his other dealings with the Turks. Not the least remunerative of his occupations was usury—lending money to necessitous pashas at 20 or 30 per cent. Now, by Turkish law all interest was illegal, and the debtor could not be forced to pay a farthing on that score. So a world of cunning and caution was needed, and the wisest might suffer through inadvertence. To avoid accidents, North combined hospitality with business. He built and furnished a room where his victims could loll on soft cushions, sip endless cups of coffee and liquids stronger than coffee, smoke endless tchibooks in safety (under Mohammed IV. tobacco was rigorously forbidden), and be fleeced in comfort. The host, it goes without saying, was not fastidious about the morals of his guests. No narrow prejudices of virtue ever hindered his familiarity with all human beings that chance might fling in his way. The sinner and the saint were equally welcome, so long as there was anything to be got out of them. Among his most intimate boon companions and clients was a particularly unsavoury captain of one of the Grand Signor’s galleys. North used to lend him money and also to palm off upon him his rotten cloths.

The fertility of North’s invention did not stop there. His shrewd study of human nature had taught him that men are influenced by externals far more than by essentials. He endeavoured to make the Turks feel at home with him by making himself outwardly like one of them. Knowing their prejudice against clean-shaven faces he grew a prodigious pair of moustaches, such as the best of them had. He tried to sit cross-legged, as they sat, and learnt to write as they wrote, resting the paper on his left hand, and making the lines slope from the left top corner downwards. He taught himself to use parables, apologues, and figures of speech, as they did, and to swear as they swore. Of this last accomplishment he was especially proud. He held that for purposes of vituperation Turkish was more apt than any other language, and he grew so accustomed to its aptness that even when he returned home his tongue would run into Turkish blasphemy of itself. Let us add another external trait that tended to make this infidel acceptable to true believers, though it was a trait for which he was indebted to nature rather than to self-culture. “It seems,” says his biographer, “that after he found his heart’s ease at Constantinople he began to grow fat, which increased upon him, till, being somewhat tall and well whiskered, he made a jolly appearance, such as the Turks approve most of all in a man.”

North’s pains to please had not been wasted. The Turks whom he entertained at 30 per cent were so delighted with this wonderful Giaour that they pressed him to become really and wholly one of them by abjuring his false religion. North always parried these awkward blandishments with his usual adroitness. He never argued on religion, or indeed on any other subject, with the Turks. Nobody likes to be contradicted, and the Turks were not accustomed to bear dissent from a Giaour. Our Treasurer would not lose profitable customers for any consideration. He had not gone to Constantinople to quarrel but to climb; and he had long since learnt that at Constantinople, as elsewhere, climbing could only be performed in the same posture as crawling. So without attempting to argue, he laughed away the suggestion of apostasy by saying, “My father wore a hat and left that hat to me. I wear it because my father left it, and”—clapping his hands on his head—“I will wear it as long as I live!” He knew the Turks well enough to know that he lost nothing in their eyes by his attachment to the paternal hat. For though keen on proselytising—always by temptation and persuasion, hardly ever by constraint—they had little respect for the proselyte.

By such means our Treasurer waxed not only wealthy but also wise. The Turks, as a rule, were too proud to converse familiarly with Christians, thinking (perhaps not without reason) that few Christians were worthy of their confidence. The result was that the English and other Franks who lived amongst them and dealt with them knew about as much of Turkish life, of Turkish ways of thought, of Turkish maxims of conduct, as an undesirable alien dwelling in Whitechapel knows of English life. Dudley North was the only Frank who, thanks to his natural adaptability and flexibility, had contrived to insinuate himself, more or less, into the spirit of Turkey. On those occasions of convivial expansion, while his guests sedulously swilled his liquids, North not less sedulously pumped their minds. He picked up every hint that dropped from their lips, hoarded it in his retentive memory, connected it with other hints, and, assisted by uncommonly quick powers of deduction and induction, learnt a good deal more in five minutes than the average European would in as many months. Conscious of his unique position as a first-hand authority on the Turks, he thought very little of Rycaut as an expert in the religion, manners, and politics of the Ottoman Empire. He described his work as very shallow. Once he went over the whole of it, and noted on the margin its errors. That copy, with some other curiosities he had collected and a Turkish dictionary he had compiled, was stolen from him. He could never discover the thief, but he thought that the things he had lost might perhaps be found among the belongings of the Rev. John Covel.

From this it would appear that the Consul and the Chaplain had not an admirer in our Treasurer. Nor, it may be presumed, had he in them fanatical worshippers.

Such was the Honourable Dudley: independent, self-reliant, holding in profound contempt the weaknesses, stupidities, and conventionalities of his neighbours; yet withal knowing how to use them for his own ends; a man infinitely flexible of plan, but fixed of purpose, and, happen what might, intent not to play the dilettante in this world.[69]