It is impossible to contemplate without admiration the intrepidity with which Finch faced the alternative before him. Happen what might, he had decided to hold out, and the only effect which the expostulations of the English and the threats of the Turks produced on his decision was to strengthen it. Courage, as we have seen, was by no means a conspicuous feature of Sir John’s character; yet on this occasion he displayed all the steadfastness of a hardened fighter. He would not let the Turks lure or intimidate him on to ground which no Ambassador could consent to occupy without grave detriment to the interests confided to him. The question was vital “not onely in regard of the Great Summe which under all the variety of demands is at the lowest very high: but in regard it is a Precedent of pernicious consequence to Our Commerce, so long as this Visir livs.”[263]
Kara Mustafa’s choler at this calm defiance is not inconceivable. It behoved him to teach the English, as he had taught other Giaours, what they got by defying his thunder. You refused all terms of peace? You shall have war.
On October 1st the Ambassador was once more summoned before the Grand Vizir’s tribunal--to plead the same cause for the third and last time. He went, accompanied by five of the leading English merchants and his Dragomans. What his emotions were as he went we know from his own mouth. Victory or imprisonment, he had said, with a certain glow of internal pride--like that of a resolute pilot amid the piled tempests. But Sir John was not either a hero or a martyr by nature: he was merely a man with a sense of duty--which does not exclude other senses. With perfect frankness he confesses that “When I went to the Tryall, accompanyd’ onely with five of the chief of the Factory, wee all, and our Druggermen too, had apprehensions of imprisonment.”
The manner in which the proceedings were conducted was not calculated to reassure the defendants. The Pasha’s claim had in the interval risen to the colossal figure of 1000 purses, that is, half-a-million dollars: so much for this, so much for that. He went on specifying the various items, until the Grand Vizir himself ordered him to stop--he had heard enough. Then turning to the Ambassador, he asked for his answer. Sir John’s answer was the same as before: a flat denial of responsibility, backed with the familiar arguments. But how poor is the eloquence of him who advocates a cause which we disapprove: how inadmissible his statements, how unconvincing his reasons! Kara Mustafa, who had put on his most thunderous look for the occasion, overruled everything that might be said for the defence with such truculence, that “when wee saw how prodigiously things were carry’d against us, wee thought imprisonment unavoidable”--we already saw ourselves in the cell of the condemned....