Norberg asserts furthermore, that the Bostangi basha, who came to divest him of his office, and to acquaint him of the grand seignior's sentence, declared him at the same time, 'a traitor, one who had disobeyed the orders of his sovereign lord, had sold himself to the enemy for money, and was found guilty of not having taken proper care of the interests of the king of Sweden.' In the first place, this kind of declarations are not at all in use in Turkey: the orders of the grand seignior always being issued privately, and executed with secresy. Secondly, if the vizier had been declared a traitor, a rebel, and a corrupted person, crimes of this nature would have been instantly punished with death in a country where they are never forgiven. Lastly, if he was punishable for not having sufficiently attended to the interests of the king of Sweden, it is evident that this prince must have had such a degree of influence at the Ottoman Porte, as to have made the other ministers to tremble, who would consequently have endeavoured to gain his good graces; whereas, on the contrary, the basha Jussuf, aga of the janissaries, who succeeded Mahomet Baltagi as grand vizier, had the same sentiments as his predecessor, in relation to Charles's conduct, and was so far from doing him any service that he thought of nothing but how to get rid of so dangerous a guest; and when count Poniatowsky, the companion and confidant of that monarch, went to compliment the vizier on his new dignity, the latter spoke to him thus. 'Pagan, I forewarn thee, that if ever I find thee hatching any intrigues, I will, upon the first notice, cause thee to be thrown into the sea with a stone about thy neck.' This compliment count Poniatowsky himself relates in the memoirs which he drew up at my request, and is a sufficient proof of the little influence his master had in the Turkish court. All that Norberg has related touching the affairs of that empire, appear to come from a prejudiced person, and one who was very ill informed of the circumstances he pretends to write about. And we may count among the errors of a party-spirit and political falsehoods, every thing which this writer advances unsupported by proofs, concerning the pretended corruption of a grand vizier, that is, of a person who had the disposal of upwards of sixty millions per annum, without being subject to the least account.[89] I have now before me the letter which count Poniatowsky wrote to King Stanislaus immediately after the signing the treaty of Pruth, in which he upbraids Baltagi Mahomet with the slight he shewed to the king of Sweden, his dislike to the war, and the unsteadiness of his temper; but never once hints the least charge of corruption: for he knew too well what the place of grand vizier was, to entertain an idea, that the czar was capable of setting a price upon the infidelity of the second person in the Ottoman empire.