Three Ways to Be Alien by Subrahmanyam Sanjay;

Author:Subrahmanyam, Sanjay;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of New England

In sum, the best victories were bloodless ones, gained by cunning negotiation and diplomatic practice rather than acts of war and bloodletting on the battlefield. There was obviously a deep contradiction between this idea and the project of constructing and leading a corsair fleet into the Mediterranean against the Ottomans and Dutch merchantmen. But the management of contradictions had after all ever been Sherley’s long suit.

It would seem however that Sherley’s somewhat changed attitude toward the Ottomans had one significant consequence: it drove a wedge between him and his longtime secretary and right-hand man, Giovanni Tommaso Pagliarini, with whom he had become associated while at Prague in late 1600, a knight of the Order of St. Lazarus who had been the cupbearer of the Papal nuncio at Prague. In April 1608, Pagliarini decided to break with Sherley, contacted the Spanish ambassador in Venice, and through him denounced Sherley in no uncertain terms. The chief document of denunciation is dated mid-May, and its terms are particularly interesting: Sherley, according to Pagliarini, was a “man of no religion [huomo di nissuna relligione]” who “arranged his conscience like a water-mill in keeping with the material to be ground [secondo la materia per macinare].”71 It is a type of metaphor to which we shall have occasion to return. Further, wrote Pagliarini, his former master was a creature entirely devoted to the pursuit of political power and financial gain. Sherley was “a man who comes running whenever there is an offer of money [corre dove è il dinaro offerto]” but at the same time wholly incompetent in the management of his financial affairs so that he was “overwhelmed by debt, owing money in every part of the world,” to all sorts of creditors, be they “Turks, Persians, Armenians, Moroccans, Jews, and many poor German merchants.” Sherley was moreover “fickle and corrupt,” as well as “mendacious by nature,” the sort of man who “thinks all night of new enterprises, but without any basis [tutta la notte pensa nuovi imprese, ma senza fundamento].” So perfidious was he that while in the service of Rudolph II, he had opened secret dealings with rebels in Hungary and — worst of all — had considered visiting Istanbul to “encourage the Turk in new damages against the Emperor [per solevare il Turco a nuovi danni dell’Imperatore].” This was a curious return to an old accusation that had been floated in England at the moment when Sherley had just embarked on his Iranian mission; it had been claimed then that while Sherley had given out that “he would serve th’emperor against the Turke, [it is]… nowe sett downe that he dothe serve the Turke against th’emperor, and so he is torned from a Christian to a Turke, which is most monstrus. No dowt, yf ytt be so, the Lord will punish the same.”72

Though Pagliarini’s denunciation reached high state circles in Spain, no action was taken on it. For his part, Sherley returned, accompanied by his usual pomp and circumstance, from Ferrara to Madrid toward the early part of August 1608, and remained there for almost half a year.

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