Page 85 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

diary, is the young Greek interpreter who accompanied him on
his first visit to Muscat. His name was Adey, but Loch often
refers to him as ‘the little Greek*. Adey was the son of a man of
means, the Sharaff (money-changer or banker), of the British
Embassy at Constantinople. He and his brother were sent by
their father to Europe to complete their education: Adey went to
London and his brother to Paris. Adey had social ambitions, and
in London lie somehow managed to get an entree into ‘the First
Society*, where he described himself as ‘The Prince of the Leba­
non*. To support his pretensions, he took to appearing at parties
in Oriental dress, and finally he appeared with a green turban on
his head, indicating that he was a Haji, who had performed the
Pilgrimage to Mecca - he was, in fact, a Christian. It was at this
stage in his career that Loch first met him, at a party in Harley
Street, and he recognised him again, when he came across him in
Bombay in 1818.
Adey’s pretence that he was a prince was shattered by meeting,
at a party in London, the Turkish Ambassador who lodged a
formal complaint with the Foreign Office about the young man
who was masquerading as ‘The Prince of the Lebanon’ - the
Lebanon, at this time, being a province of Turkey. Adey was
sent for by the Foreign Minister and, after an interview with him,
he left England hurriedly and joined his brother in Paris. He
stayed there for some time, until he had spent all his money, and
he then returned to Constantinople hoping to be received as a
prodigal son. But owing to his debts, and the bad habits which
he had acquired in London and Paris, ‘added to all the predisposed
vicious inclinations of the Greek’, as Loch says, he had become a
notorious character, and his father cast him off.
From Constantinople, Adey made his way by land to India,
and eventually arrived at Calcutta where his plausibility gained
him many friends, who persuaded the Government to employ
him to buy horses for the army in Persia and Arabia. He set off
in a ship from Calcutta for the Persian Gulf but, shortly before
she sailed, the ship caught fire and was totally destroyed, but Adey
survived. Returning to Calcutta, he described his hardships and
losses with such feeling that a public subscription was raised for
him. With a considerable sum of money in his pocket, he set off
again for the Gulf, and was successful in buying a number of
horses, which he brought to Bombay.
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