_Jan. 19-29, 1677-78._--“The Polish Ambassadour is here still and yet alive, though the Plague was very hott in his house, he could not get leave to remove to another, having no other answer but this, Let him run his destiny.”
_March 1-11, 1677-78._--“At last the Peace between the Port and the Poles is concluded; which was effected three dayes since but is not yet underwritten.... The Ambassadour was so long inflexible, but he gott nothing by his standing out thus long but bad words and worse Treatment, a great part of his trayn being dead of the Plague by ill accommodation when Infection was gott amongst them.” So if this treatment, as seems probable, was the result of policy rather than of mere cruelty, it proved efficacious. “The Peace was patchd’ up by the Tartar Han or Crim Tartar ... the Polish Ambassadour applying himselfe to the Mediation of this Prince with such Humility that though His Principality is so qualifyd’ ... He kissd’ the very Hem of his Garment that touchd’ the Ground.”
_March 2-12, 1677-78._--“The Peace with Poland is subscribd’ on both sides ... the Poles have deliverd’ up not onely a great part of Ukrania, two places there onely remaining to them, but what is of worse consequence to them, they have surrenderd’ all Podolia entirely, the richest province they had.”
In return for these territorial sacrifices, the Ambassador expected some religious concessions, among them the restoration of our old friends, the Latin Fathers, to the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. The Poles set immense store by this point, “for their wisedome tells them, that if the Restitution of the Holy Sepulchre depends upon the Peace with that Crowne, they shall be sure hereafter of the assistance of all Christian Princes upon any new warr with the Turk.” And in fact they had managed to insert an Article to such effect in the Treaty. But it was not for nothing that the Porte had for its chief Interpreter a Greek. The Treaty had been drawn up in two languages--Latin and Turkish. Now, in the Turkish version, that Article, from possession and guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre--the form under which it figured in the Latin text--had been whittled down to mere access to it: a privilege that the Latin Fathers already enjoyed. The Ambassador demanded that the Article should be interpreted according to the Latin text; the Porte adhered to the letter of the Turkish text. Hence several stormy conferences, in the course of which the Grand Vizir’s Kehayah and the Rais Effendi told the Pole that they would give him war if he would not have peace on their terms, called him a faithless Giaour who would fly from what he had signed, and reviled him with such violence that at length the poor Palatine, terrified for his liberty, if not for his life, fairly gave in.
