“Upon the return of this answer I sent him word, That both with the Ambassadour of France and Bailo of Venice, Persons of the same character with me, our meanest servants were mutually treated with greater respect then he showd’ to my First Druggerman, Knight of Jerusalem, and of the most Noble and Ancient family in this Country, and that therefore, unlesse that the Resident did make Him some Reparation or Satisfaction, I must be forcd’ to resent it: wondring both at His Passion and Indiscretion to say at the same time he knew him to be my First Druggerman, he should tell the other Druggerman the Jewes should have bastonadod’ him, had he said those words within the House.”
Thereupon Signor Spinola’s Secretary came to beg Sir John’s pardon, offering him all reparation in his master’s name, “even submitting himselfe to be bastonadod’.” Sir John, however, who felt that he had been wounded in his most tender point, was not yet satisfied: to appease him, it was necessary that the atonement should be as public as the injury: “the thing being Publick and making no passe to Sigr Giorgio I told him, till he had sent some message to him I could not admitt of any corrispondence.” Accordingly he cut off all relations with the Resident and declared to the Secretary of State that he would continue “so to doe till I have farther satisfaction.” The Secretary of State duly expressed his resentment to the Genoese Minister in London. But in the meantime Sir John had received Spinola’s submission as he desired, in the form of “a passe toward the personall satisfaction of my Druggerman done in Publique before my servants, and then after four moneths I returnd’ him his visit.”
Not very long afterwards our Ambassador found himself involved in a difference with his French colleague.
Sir John’s religious activities at Adrianople had led to a little coolness between those hitherto firm friends. In five months Nointel had not paid Finch one visit, and now that he had to see him on a matter of business (a dispute between the English and French merchants of Aleppo referred to the adjudication of their respective ambassadors), he pretended that it was Finch’s turn to call. Hence a pretty quarrel. Finch declared that he had made the last visit. Nointel maintained that that visit was a return to one he had made and insisted that Finch should begin afresh. Finch protested that this was contrary to the diplomatic practice of Pera, and “a most dangerous point--to make two visits for one, it being the note of distinction between Ambassadours and Residents.” No doubt the noble Marquis’s _amour-propre_ would be gratified by such a recognition of French superiority, but the honour of his Majesty did not permit Sir John to afford him that gratification on any account. Both by letters and by oral messages he assured Nointel, blandly but firmly, that, unless he made the first visit, all intercourse between them would cease. “And certainly,” he wrote to the Secretary of State, “I shall not give way to him one hair, without the orders of the King my Master.” Courteous as Sir John was, he could be very obstinate where his King’s honour was at stake.