The manuscripts grouped together as NLS MS 5708 are loose sheets of paper of different sizes, both quarto and folio, individually titled and in some cases paginated by Liston. The earliest is dated 5 October 1814 and describes a fire in Pera. One of the accounts in this group, ‘Of the term Sultana’ (NLS MS 5708 ff. 3–4r), dated 1814, appears to be a draft or version of passages dated August 1813 appearing in her main journal (NLS MS 5709 ff. 65r–66r), and is omitted here due to this similarity.

The Fire at Pera

Fire at Pera

British Palace – Pera of Constantinople, 5th October 1814

About four o’clock this morning one of my English maids came into our bed-chamber to say there was a fire near the palace. Mr Liston immediately got up, but as fires occur very frequently I remained a few minutes longer in bed – when the maid returned and asked if she should dress me, for that the house in which lived the wife and children of our maître d’hôtel was burnt to the ground. As I knew this to be on the outside of our walls I rose very quickly – and was astonished to find the house and garden illuminated by the surrounding flames. I ascended the gallery (commanding the extensive view described by Lady Wortley Montagu) and saw that a line of wooden houses on one side of our wall were in flames. The street immediately fronting our gate – which was filled with houses and shops – was likewise blazing and one house on the other range of wall had caught fire. I returned to my room, placed my jewel box and writing box, with money and papers, so as to be readily taken up. Then I joined the concourse of people collected in our garden and courtyard, for our premises not only served to protect the persons already burnt out, with what clothes and furniture they had been able to save, but the surrounding streets were so narrow that it was from within our walls only, that the engines and pipes could give assistance to the houses on the outside of them.