Hitherto the Porte, engrossed by the Cretan War, had made no effort to check the evil. But it was thought that, the moment peace was signed, the first thing taken in hand would be the regulation of the currency. And if the Sultan’s Ministers were not disposed to move of their own accord, there were those whose interest it was to instigate them. English merchants considered that the vast importation of false money must at last redound to their serious prejudice: the French and Italian importers, making 50 per cent profit on the _temeens_, were able to outbid us in the Turkish market. Therefore, in 1668, the Levant Company forbade under severe penalties its Factors to receive this money, and, at its instance, the King ordered Sir Daniel Harvey to call the attention of the Grand Signor to “the mischiefs and ill consequences of that abuse.” The Ambassador was so successful as to get the Turkish Government to forbid the circulation of the _temeens_ by Proclamation: “I have,” he reported, “spoyld I hope the Trade of the French and Italians, with thare false mony, every body refusing to take them.” But this sudden and absolute denunciation of the most common coin in the country spelt ruin for millions of people, especially of the poorer classes, and the distress was heightened when the tax-gatherers refused to accept the _temeen_ as legal tender, but demanded Lion dollars or Seville and Mexico pieces of eight, coins which had by now become almost unobtainable. The upshot was drubbings and imprisonments on one side, riots on the other: at Brusa and Angora the outraged taxpayers rose in rebellion, and some of the Grand Signor’s officers fell victims to their wrath. However, from that hour the _temeen_ was irrevocably doomed; and fraudulence had to seek a new field in the false dollar, which was now pushed into the market with as much vigour and as little scruple as its predecessor. Harvey lost no time in obtaining samples and in lecturing the Grand Vizir on the subject, with the result that, in 1671, a severe inquiry was instituted and several officials who connived at the importation of these products of Western Art smarted for it.[204]
Nevertheless, the traffic continued to flourish, Lion dollars being manufactured even at Smyrna, as we have seen from Mr. Rycaut’s dispute with the French Consul at the end of 1674;[205] and the Levant Company, fearing lest, in spite of its prohibitions, some Englishmen should again engage in it, passed an order that all specie arriving in Turkey on English bottoms should be examined by the Ambassador and Consuls, and none, save such as was of perfect alloy, should be permitted to enter the country. Further, to prove their good faith, the directors of the Company ordered that the examination should be carried out in the presence of Turkish officials. From this well-intentioned measure were to spring some very serious ills. The Turkish officials displayed the liveliest reluctance to meddle in the matter. They frankly regarded the whole business as a blind designed to cover the importation of false money, and were afraid of laying themselves open to the charge of connivance. In fact, the more earnestly the English invited the Turks to witness their probity, the worse grew the Turks’ opinion of the English. Their attitude, not unreasonable in men who had had such experience of Western probity, might have warned our Ambassador that he was skating on exceedingly thin ice. But he did not heed the warning. It was the Company’s order, and Sir John, who had in a superlative degree the fault that so often belongs to conscientious public servants--an excess of zeal over discretion--was anxious not only to carry out his instruction, but even to better it. Not content with inviting the Customer, he invited the Kaimakam himself to the inspection. Nor did anything occur to demonstrate the injudiciousness of these proceedings until the Ashby case.