France in 1681 was waging a long campaign against the corsairs of the Barbary states — Tripoli, Tunis, and the Regency of Algiers — who operated under the loose umbrella of the Ottoman Empire. That summer a French squadron of six ships, four of them galleons, sailed from Toulon under Abraham Duquesne, one of the most respected commanders of Louis XIV's navy. They joined other French ships and entered the Aegean on the trail of Tripolitanian vessels. After a clash near Cuha Island in early June, the French chased six Tripolitanian ships that had taken shelter at Chios. When Duquesne arrived off the port on 23 July, he found eight enemy ships there — and two captured French vessels among them.

What followed was an act that strained the rules even of that ruthless age. Chios was Ottoman territory, and the Ottomans were not at war with France; indeed the two powers had long counted themselves allies. Duquesne's deception — anchoring under peaceful colors before opening fire — turned the harbor into a killing ground. The cannonballs meant for the Tripolitanian corsairs also tore through a living city. The toll was carefully recorded afterward: roughly 60 to 80 Muslim residents and 50 Christian residents killed, around 800 wounded, and damage to homes and places of worship across the town. These were merchants, families, and laborers of an island famous for its mastic and its mixed, layered population, not combatants in anyone's war.

Word reached Istanbul, and the Ottoman response was firm but measured. Kapudan Pasha Bozoklu Mustafa Pasha sailed with 33 galleys, arriving on 7 August to blockade both the port and the French fleet inside it. The diplomacy turned sharp. The French ambassador in Istanbul, Count Joseph de Guilleragues, was reprimanded, then imprisoned for six months for giving evasive answers, and the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha demanded a fine and compensation from Louis XIV himself. Bozoklu Mustafa Pasha stayed at Chios for five months, holding Duquesne's ships effectively hostage until a guarantee of payment arrived. For all the firepower France had shown, its squadron now sat trapped in the very harbor it had bombarded.

The reckoning came not in battle but in tribute. Around ten months after the bombardment, on 17 May 1682, the gifts and compensation Louis XIV had promised reached the Ottoman court and were presented to Sultan Mehmed IV. The settlement even included a payment reckoned by survey for those who had died — Bozoklu Mustafa Pasha had counted the dead and the damage. The Tripolitanian ships released their two captured French vessels and their prisoners. The Ottomans, who considered France an old friend, chose to resolve a provocation that might have justified war by accepting compensation instead. The corsairs Duquesne had been chasing were almost a footnote; the people of Chios, who paid the heaviest price, were not even party to the deal struck over their heads.