It is amazing to find Sir John, in his report to the Secretary of State, while moralising on the terrors of Turkish tyranny, also complaining of the “timidity and cowardesse of Druggermen,” who refused to risk hanging and impaling in order to please him. However, in the end, finding it impossible to overcome the Dragomans’ perverse regard for their lives, he couched his Note in vaguer terms.
To this Note Sir John received no answer for three days, and on the fourth he had one which he did not know what to make of; it looked as if Kara Mustafa had been rather annoyed by his Memorial, though he did not tear it up. So next day he sent his Dragomans to sound the Rais Effendi. This Minister told them that he would be sorry to see an ambassador who enjoyed so good credit at the Porte forfeit it by opposing the Grand Vizir, who, if the Ambassador came to audience, was ready to embrace him. Encouraged by this message, Sir John wrote to the Rais Effendi, thanking him for his friendship, hinting at a more substantial reward for any good offices he might do him with “the Most Excellent Vizir,” and protesting his willingness to give his Excellency every possible satisfaction. His one passion was to maintain his ambassadorial character with due decorum, to preserve the peace and commerce according to the “Sacred and Sublime Capitulations,” and to render to the Imperial Majesty of the Grand Signor “all acts of obsequiousness and reverence.” His heart being thus disposed, he hoped that it would be clear “to the lucid understanding of the Most Excellent Supream Visir” that a first-class Ambassador from one of the greatest potentates in Christendom ought not to be treated in parity with a Resident of whatsoever prince, much less with the Residents of inferior Republics. Therefore he trusted that some expedient would be found to make a distinction between the highest and the lowest sorts of foreign Ministers; for he burned with a desire to do reverence in person to the Most Excellent Vizir Azem. Such was the tenor of his letter.[191] The Rais Effendi read it but said nothing.
We may observe here that the distinction between Ambassadors and Residents which meant so much to European envoys did not exist for the Turks. Whenever an Ambassador claimed precedence over a Resident upon the ground of superior rank, they used to say: “What, has he not a Commission? have you more?” For all diplomatic agents they had only one name, _Elchi_, and their attitude towards them all was equally contemptuous.[192] This, however, as we shall see in the sequel, did not prevent them from exploiting a prejudice which they did not share.