Note 195 — Chapter XIII · THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE

Dudley North (Life, p. 77) says that the time for repayment of the debt had passed and that Ashby did not proceed to the sale until repeated applications to the Venetian had made him despair of ever getting his money back. A similar assertion appears in a thoroughly partisan “Narrative” presented by the Levant Company to the King (Register, S.P. Levant Company, 145). But this is flatly contradicted by Finch’s definite statement that the sale was carried out “three moneths before the mony was due.” The only palliation the Ambassador offers for an act which he condemns as “unjustifiable” is that Ashby had obtained Pizzamano’s verbal consent to the sale: a point which, in the absence of written evidence, could not be proved. It need hardly be said that Sir John had no motive to represent things as worse than they were, or that he was not prejudiced in favour of the Venetian, whom he describes as “a Rogue declard’”—“a Merchant that robbd’ all his Principles (sic) of Venice, and the Captain that brought him thence, and is by order of that State to be hangd’ if they can gett him.”