As was natural, married Franks denounced the measure bitterly: they had come to Turkey on the understanding that they should live in it as free men, and now by a stroke of Kara Mustafa’s pen they were suddenly reduced to the position of slaves. The outcry was loudest among the French and the Dutch, upon whom the innovation fell most heavily: some forty Frenchmen, including the chief merchants, and three of the principal Dutch merchants had native wives. But notwithstanding all that the French Ambassador and the Dutch Resident could say or do, and all the endeavours of private individuals, and all their offers of money, not the least grace was shown to them. The rich French merchants escaped the consequences of the edict by purchasing titular Consulships at Gallipoli, Athens, and so forth; but their poorer compatriots were disfranchised. The English had so far been very little affected. Sir John had easily obtained the necessary Patents for his Dragomans. Nor did the marriage disqualification trouble them, as, with very few exceptions, our colony consisted of gay bachelors.[221]
But now--soon after Kara Mustafa’s return to Adrianople--there arose a case which was to cost our countrymen dearly.
Mr. Samuel Pentlow, a wealthy English merchant of Smyrna, who was married to a Greek lady, had just died, leaving his widow and his children--a son about three years of age and a daughter three or four months old--to the care of his Assigns, Mr. Gabriel Smith and our old acquaintance Mr. John Ashby, with instructions that they should be sent home to enjoy the lands and other possessions he owned in England, together with his Smyrna estate, which was commonly estimated at something between two hundred thousand and half a million dollars: fruit of thirty years’ labour in the Levant. In obedience to the wishes of the deceased, the Assigns took passage for his family in an English ship about to sail from Smyrna. But the other residents, fearing, in view of Kara Mustafa’s recent edict, that the departure of the woman and children without official permission might expose the colony to the Grand Vizir’s attentions, protested to the Consul and the Ambassador, who agreed that this business could not safely be done in a clandestine manner. The Assigns, therefore, entered into negotiations with the Cadi. This gentleman was quite willing to wink; but he demanded his reward in advance, while Messrs. Smith and Ashby would not part with a single asper until after the thing was done. Their caution offended the sensitive Cadi, who, out of spite, hastened to inform the Grand Vizir of the contemplated elopement.