It is evident from these utterances that, by the end of 1677, Sir John Finch felt the burden too heavy for his shoulders. But his contract with the Company had yet some time to run, and besides he did not wish to return home before his friends had found him some other employment. His mentor Baines, to whom as usual Finch delegated the task of string-pulling, had already discussed the subject in a letter to Lord Conway, in the course of which he said: “If your Brother leaves this charge without being in possession of a fayr and convenient post in England, I shall think that He hath not a friend there, or at least very few, and those of no influence.”[207] Pending the fruition of these exertions on his behalf, Sir John could do nothing but set his teeth and stick to his saddle like a fearful rider.
[200] It is amusing to watch the process as mirrored in his reports. On Nov. 29 Finch tells Coventry that his audience cost Nointel “near the same with me,” which was not true. On Dec. 15 he emends this statement: “I now judge His Expense to have bin much higher; for one Persian carpett alone is valud’ to me by a Jew that serves the Visir, at three thousand five hundred Dollars. This,” he adds, “I mention, not to advantage my Own Condition, but to compassionate His.” Very likely!
[201] Finch to Coventry, Nov. 29, S.V., 1677.
[204] See Rycaut’s _Memoirs_, pp. 258-60; _Life of Dudley North_, pp. 79-80; and the following State Papers: Intelligence for Lord Arlington, Constantinople, Feb. 22, 1667-68; Unsigned Letter dated Smyrna, June 1, 1668; The King’s Instructions to Harvey, Aug. 3, 1668; Inclosure in Winchilsea’s despatch of April 4-14, 1669; Harvey’s despatches March 10, 15, 1668 [-69]; Jan. 31, 1670 [-71]; April 30, 1671. _S.P. Turkey_, 19.
[205] See above, p. 76. Cp. Instructions to Finch, Appendix I. Cl. 7.
[206] _Life of Sir Dudley North_, pp. 81-4; Finch to Coventry, Dec. 15-25, 1677; Jan. 19-29, 1678; the Same to the Levant Company, Jan. 19-29, 1678, _Coventry Papers_; _Register, S.P. Levant Company_, 145. Wherever there is any slight discrepancy between North’s and Finch’s accounts of this Avania, I have, for reasons which seem adequate to me, followed the latter.
[207] Baines to Conway, June 1-11, 1677, _S.P. Turkey_, 19.