Lord Pagett enjoyed among the English in the Levant the reputation of a diplomat who made “no great figure at Court, contenting himself with being feared by his own nation.”[306] And in this case he did precisely as the unfortunate Sir John Finch would have done. He indited a lengthy despatch in which he gave five different reasons why he could do nothing. The records of the Porte had been lost before Vienna, and without them no claim would be considered. The widow had no documents to prove her case. By the Turkish law all debts for which no demand had been made for fifteen years were invalid. The Vizir then in power was the son of Kara Mustafa’s sister who was still alive, and there was nobody in the whole of the Ottoman Empire who respected the memory of that “unfortunate great man” so much or who showed a stronger devotion to his family. Lastly, the Turkish Government had no money to pay off its soldiers and sailors, all of whom were clamouring for their long overdue stipends: “and while pressing, clear, just debts can’t be got in, there’s little hopes of recovering an old, doubtfull, litigious pretence, pursued upon a very cold scent.”[307] His Lordship therefore advised that the matter should be allowed to rest till some favourable opportunity turned up. Such an opportunity, to the best of the present writer’s knowledge, has not yet turned up. And so we may part for ever with Mrs. Pentlow, _alias_ Mrs. St. John, and direct our attention to some of the other characters that have figured in our story--those three distinguished Englishmen who, it is hoped, did in Turkey enough to inspire the reader with a wish to know what became of them afterwards.
The subsequent career of Paul Rycaut need not detain us long. On missing the Constantinople appointment, our late Consul entreated the King to cast a gracious eye upon him, when any office which His Majesty’s wisdom should judge most agreeable to his talents and experience became vacant; and in 1685 he obtained the post of Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon who had recently been made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. At the same time he was knighted and sworn of the Privy Council and judge of the Admiralty in Ireland. In this employment the ex-Consul earned his Chief’s commendations for integrity and, among the Irish Catholics, the character of an extortionate official. Whichever of these two opinions was correct, Sir Paul did not hold that office long. At the beginning of 1688 he returned to England, and about the middle of the following year he was transferred at last to a sphere for which his linguistic attainments and his diplomatic and commercial experience really fitted him--that of English Resident in Hamburgh and the Hanse Towns. He filled that position almost till his death, which occurred in 1700, a few months after his recall. As in Turkey, so in Europe, Rycaut devoted much of his time to literary work, publishing _The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches_ (1678); _The History of the Turkish Empire from 1623 to 1677_, including his _Memoirs_ (1680); and some translations from the Spanish and the Latin. Of these productions the _History_ was long considered one of the best works of its kind in the English language; and the _Memoirs_ part of it, at least, can still be read with profit and not without pleasure.