Chapter II: Introduction

§ 1.—OF THE FORMATION OF THE LEVANT COMPANY OF TURKEY MERCHANTS.

The two manuscript diaries which are published in this volume give us the experiences of men who resided in Constantinople during the earlier days of the Levant Company. When Master Thomas Dallam went with the present of a marvellous organ from Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan Mahomed III in 1599, our Company of Turkey Merchants had scarcely organised themselves. When Dr. Covel went as chaplain to the embassy in 1670, the Company was still struggling to gain for itself those rights—or capitulations, as they are called—which formed the basis of the prosperity of the Company during the ensuing century and a half. Consequently, I think, a succinct account of the rise of this Company will form a suitable introduction to the perusal of the diaries themselves.

In the development of our system of commerce the Company of Turkey Merchants played a most important part, second perhaps only to the great East India Company, and its history is the history of one of those pillars on which British prosperity has been constructed. It was a marked feature of the sixteenth century, when all those Companies—the African Company, the Muscovy Company, the East India Company—all had their rise, and by them was laid the foundation of our subsequent mercantile successes. The Levant Company lived an active life of 244 years; and, besides the amount of wealth it accumulated for this country, it did infinite service in the development of art and research, geography and travel, the suppression of slavery, and the spread of civilisation in countries which would still have been unapproachable had not the continued efforts of the 244 years been towards civilisation and humanity.

The history of the capitulations or treaties with which foreign nations sought to establish themselves in the greatest centre of commercial enterprise before the opening out of other routes to India is a very interesting one, and dates back to remote ages, when commercial bodies were formed in the city of Constantine, at the time when the power of the Greek emperors was on the wane. As far back as the ninth and tenth centuries of our era, the emperors of the East granted to the Warings or Varangians from Scandinavia capitulations or rights of exterritoriality, which gave them permission to own wharves, carry on trade, and govern themselves in the Eastern capital: these rights established numerous _imperia in imperio_ during the succeeding centuries in Constantinople. The Venetians obtained them early in the eleventh century; the Amalfians in 1056, the Genoese in 1098, and the Pisans in 1110, and henceforward they became so general, that the Greeks of the later empire complained that there were no wharves for themselves, and that they could not compete with these indefatigable foreign traders; much as we hear complaints now amongst our own artisans of the influx of German and Belgian workmen into England.

When the Turks took Constantinople they did little to interfere with the existing order of things: the Genoese and Venetians got their capitulations renewed; the right to have disputes with their fellow-countrymen decided by their own authorities; the right to have questions between them and Ottoman subjects decided only in presence of a Venetian interpreter; exemption from the tax imposed on Christians in lieu of military service; and the right to appoint their own magistrates in Constantinople. Being a nomadic race, the Ottoman Turks cared little for commerce: their ships were the caïques of the Greeks; their emperors wrote their decrees in red ink, as their Greek predecessors had done; and to the foreign traders who flocked to Constantinople they gave the same privileges that the Greek emperors had done, and, as far as they were concerned, the _status quo_ was maintained.

Meanwhile trade was passing westwards; the time was come when the Portuguese, the French, and finally the English were to succeed the Italian republics as the commercial nations of the world.

In 1536 Sieur Foret arranged a capitulation for the French between Sultan Solyman I and Francis I, and the essential articles of this treaty have been often redrawn and embodied in many treaties with the different European Powers, and still remain as the foundation of the many treaties under which foreigners now live in Constantinople: matters of dispute between Frenchmen were to be decided only by their own authorities; questions between Frenchmen and Turks were to be decided only in the presence of the French dragoman; they could appoint their own magistrates, and were exempt from the _harach_. This was the first of what we may call the modern capitulations, by which the Western nations have obtained their footing in Constantinople; they are by no means an invention of the Turks, but a distinct inheritance from the old Byzantine days, which they were compelled to adopt, and which has turned out to be as great a boon to the Mussulman as to the foreigner who obtained it.

In proportion to the exigencies of the Turk and his want of money, the system of capitulations has increased in strength. Encroachments have occurred; fresh clauses have had to be introduced to meet the subtleties of the Turk; the so-called _avanias_, of which we shall hear more in Dr. Covel’s diary, had to be combated; but, nevertheless, the progress has been continuous, and no Company has contributed more to the success of the foreigner on Turkish soil than the “Turkey Merchants” of England.

During the reign of Elizabeth, our infantile commercial adventures were beginning to make themselves felt. Early in the sixteenth century there had been a few isolated cases of voyages to the Levant in search of wealth. From 1511 to 1534 we hear of certain “tall ships belonging to London, Southampton, and Bristol, which made voyages to the East, trading with Sicily, Crete, Chios, and sometimes Cyprus, Tripoli, and Beyrout in Syria”; but there appears to have been no systematic commerce carried on in English bottoms in those days, most of the trade between the Levant and England being conducted by the Venetians. So far back as 1513 we had a consul established at Chios, and in 1534 (Hakluyt, vol. ii, p. 98) we read of an exciting voyage made by _The Holy Cross_ and _The Matthew Gonson_ to Crete and Chios, both ships coming back much the worse for wear. In 1550 Captain Bodenham, with “the great Barke _Aucher_”, went to Chios, and three years later Anthony Jenkinson went to Aleppo, and got trading privileges “on a footing with the most favoured nations”. This was the actual foundation of our future capitulations, and the first commencement of our Levant Company.

Up to this time the carrying trade between England and the Levant had been carried on, on ships called argosies, by the Venetians. Sir Paul Ricaut, son of a London merchant, who was born in 1620, was secretary to Lord Winchilsea, and consul at Smyrna for eleven years; he wrote, by the direction of Charles II, a work entitled _The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches_. He also wrote a book entitled _The Present State of the Turkish Empire_, a very interesting work, the first edition of which, Pepys tells us, was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. In this work he tells us that the ships known as argosies were so called because they were built at Ragusa for the Venetian merchants. “These vast carracks called argosies, which are so famed for the vastness of their burthen and bulk, were corruptly so denominated from Ragosies, ships of Ragusa.” The Ragusans, as merchants, were much to the fore in those days, prior to the great earthquake, and had, as we see from Dr. Covel’s diary, an ambassador of their own at Constantinople.

“Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies, with portly sail,—
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,—
Do over-peer the petty traffickers,
That curt’sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.”

(Shakes., _Merchant of Venice_, Act i, Scene 1.)

One of these argosies was wrecked off the Isle of Wight about 1575, and it is said that the Venetians refused to bring merchandise into such dangerous seas after this catastrophe. Perhaps this argosy may be the very one which suggested to Shakespeare the shipwreck of the Venetian merchantman. At any rate, this fact obliged individual action on the part of the English merchants of the day, and at once necessitated the formation of a distinct Company, if the trade with the Levant was to be continued.

Another point also contributed to the starting of an independent trade with the Levant, namely, a quarrel with Venice concerning the duties on currants (_State Papers, Domestic_, 11th April, 1606). In 1575 Venice had granted a patent to one Acerbo Velutelli, a native of Lucca, which gave him the sole right of importing to England currants and oil from Venetian dominions. Velutelli contrived to get these articles conveyed to England on English ships, and, by exacting an export duty for his own benefit, enriched himself and impoverished the Venetian traders. Venice then imposed a fine of 5_s._ 6_d._ on currants and oil conveyed to England in other than Venetian bottoms. Elizabeth retaliated by a similar fine on their importation, and for a time trade in these commodities was at a standstill.

Yet another, and that a political, cause promoted our intercourse with Turkey. Queen Elizabeth was just entering into her vital contest with Philip II of Spain, and to secure the alliance and co-operation of the Sultan was one of her favourite schemes at this critical juncture. Until the reign of Amurath III the English had been altogether strangers to Turkey; but in 1579 three merchants were sent to Constantinople—William Harebone, Edward Ellis, and Richard Staple—to spy out the land, as it were, and, if possible, obtain for English merchants the same social and commercial privileges that other nations enjoyed. Two years later Queen Elizabeth formed a treaty charter with Amurath III for five years, in which he styles himself “the most sacred Mussulman-like Emperor”, and she also granted letters patent to a small Company entitled “The Company of Merchants of the Levant”, consisting of Sir E. Osborne, Thomas Smith, Stephen and William Garret—“because they had found out and opened a trade in Turkey, not known in the memory of any man now living to be frequented by our progenitors.”

The first of the Company’s ships to trade with the Levant was sent out in 1582. It was called _The Great Susan_, and William Harebone, the first ambassador from England to the Ottoman Porte, was carried out by her. He established factories at Constantinople, obtained capitulations from the Porte, and regularly inaugurated our trade there. Harebone was considerably assisted by the great Vizier Sokolli and the Sultan’s tutor, the learned historian Seadedin, in his negotiations. (Von Hammer.)

At the same time it is evident that commercial objects were not paramount in Queen Elizabeth’s mind, but a desire to obtain the Sultan as an ally against her formidable enemy. In her letters to the Sultan she takes advantage of the well-known horror the Mahommedans have of image-worship, and styles herself, “the unconquered and most puissant defender of the true faith against the idolaters who falsely profess the name of Christ”.

In 1587 her agent in Constantinople presented a petition to Sultan Amurath III, for assistance against the Spanish Armada, imploring him to send help “against that idolater, the King of Spain, who, relying on the help of the Pope and all idolatrous princes, designs to crush the Queen of England, and then to turn his whole power to the destruction of the Sultan, and make himself universal monarch.”

Christendom, luckily for the reputation of Elizabeth, never saw an alliance between the Crescent and the Cross of so peculiar a nature brought to any ultimate result. The Sultan promised, but did nothing. Turkey was already on the decline, and her internal troubles occupied her sufficiently. Ranke, vol. i, p. 433, speaks of “the advances made by the English Government to the Turks in the time of Elizabeth”, and this factor had no doubt as much to do with the formation of the Levant Company as anything else.

In 1586 a charter was granted to fifty-three individuals, with power to trade in the Levant; and though, of course, the ambassador resided at Constantinople, in those days the principal mart of English trade was Aleppo, where Michael Locke was at that time consul, whose account of the condition of affairs in that city is quaint and interesting. He also speaks of the trade of Chios being great some years before, and alludes to it as “the great store of sundry commodities”, and further states that in 1593 tin was the principal article of export from England. He founded a factory at Aleppo which was one of the most flourishing in the Levant for 150 years. The outlet of this commerce was Scanderoon, and we find all the vessels which traded to the East, including the ship _Hector_, which took Master Dallam out, going to Scanderoon before Constantinople.

Sir Edward Barton was the first resident ambassador at Constantinople. Harebone had evidently been only sent out as a plenipotentiary extraordinary to inaugurate the intercourse with the Levant. Hakluyt (vol. ii) gives us an account of the present which Sir Edward Barton took out on the ship _Ascension_ in 1593 for the Sultan Amurath III: “12 goodly pieces of plate, 36 garments of cloth of all colours, 20 garments of cloth of gold, 10 garments of satin, 6 pieces of fine Holland, and certain other things of good value.” To his powerful wife, the Sultana Safiye, Queen Elizabeth sent a “jewel of her Majesty’s picture set with rubies and diamonds; 3 pieces of gilt plate; 10 garments of cloth of gold; a very fine case of glasse bottles, silver and gilt; and 2 pieces of fine Holland.” With Mahomed III, who succeeded his father, Amurath III, in 1595, Sir E. Barton seems to have been on most intimate terms, carrying on the traditional alliance, and hopes of possible hope of support which had been started in his father’s reign.

Mahomed III was the eldest son of Amurath, one of his 103 children. He was a son of his Venetian wife and favourite, the Sultana Safiye, a lady of the House of Baffo, who had been captured by a Turkish corsair in her youth. Mahomed III put nineteen of his brothers to death on his accession, the grossest instance of fratricide even in Turkish annals. He was at the outset of his reign chiefly engaged in wars in Hungary, and in these Sir Edward Barton accompanied him. They ended in the victory of Cerestes, and, on his return to Constantinople, Sir E. Barton, worn out by the rigours of the campaign, died. In Sultan Mahomed III’s letter to Queen Elizabeth, in 1596, he thus alludes to Sir E. Barton: “As to your highnesse’s well-beloved Ambassador at our blessed Porte, Edward Barton, one of the nation of the Messiah, he having been enjoined by us to follow our imperial camp without having been enabled previously to obtain your highness’s permission to go with my imperial Staff, we have reason to be satisfied, and to hope that also your highness will know how to appreciate the services he has thus rendered to us in our imperial camp.”

Mustapha, the first Turkish envoy to England in 1607, also alludes to Sir E. Barton: “Mr. Barton was in the army ... when Raab, _alias_ Severin, was won from the Christians.”

Sir E. Barton came of a Yorkshire family, and was sent out to Constantinople as ambassador in 1593, with the title of “Agent for her Majesty with the Grand Seignior”. Subsequently, however, he received his stipend from the Levant Company. He died at Chalki, one of the Prince’s Islands, in 1597, and was buried at the monastery there. His tombstone (which Dr. Covel saw, _vide_ p. 281) was displaced and put over the door of the monastery wrong way up, until Lord Strangford had it put in its present position, and the following inscription is still legible:—

“Eduardo Barton, Illustrissimo Serenissimo Anglorum Reginæ
Oratori viro præstantissimo, qui post reditum a bello Ungarico
quo cum invicto Turcorum imperatore, profectus fuerat diem
obiit, pietatis ergo, ætatis anno xxxv. Sal. vero MDXCVII XVIII
Kal. Januar.”

Mr. Henry Lello was appointed to succeed Sir E. Barton. From the Venetian Baily’s report we learn about his reception by the Sultan. He calls him Sir Henry Billoe (Von Hammer), but this is an obvious mistake. Sir Henry Lello wrote regularly to England an account of affairs as they progressed at Constantinople. His term of office is chiefly marked by a prolonged quarrel with the French ambassador, to which Dallam refers in his MS. (_vide_ p. 81), to settle which the Baily of Venice, one of the Capello family, was chosen arbiter.

Sir Henry Lello’s correspondence is now in the Record Office, and from one of his letters we learn officially how the Sultan received the present which Dallam took out. I herewith transcribe a considerable portion of it as bearing very good testimony to the accuracy of Master Thomas Dallam’s MS.:—

“_S. P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 4._

“_Henry Lello to Sʳ Robᵗ Cecil, 21 Oct. 1599._

“Right Honorable,—I omitted the last curier, for that I
could not then, nor yet cannott, advize yoʳ honnoʳ of that
good succes of my ymployment heere wᵗʰ the Gʳ Signior, as I
expected, by the meanes of the french Ambassador, who, with
his great bribes (receyvinge now the Pope’s pay), sparethe
nothinge to hinder all my desingnes in mallice, seinge the
reputation of Her Majesty is so great in this port, and cheefly
for the consulledge of forrestiers, wᶜʰ the Grand Signior
lyttle after the arrivall of the shipp graunted should come
under Her Majesty’s banner, nothwithstandinge the same was
formerly graunted by his father and him sealfe, proffering
all other reasonable demaunds wᶜʰ her Majesty should desire,
countinge hir frindshipp before that of any other Christian
Prince, rejoysinge greatly to see the shipp to come into port,
and more hir princely presents, espetially the instrument and
plate, whereof hee made great accompt, and at the tyme apoynted
mee to come present the same; he made demonstration therof
by spekinge himsealf to me wᶜʰ hath not ever bin used (as is
reported) to any Cristian prince’s ambassador, the manner
whereof in breefe I doe hereby advize yoʳ honnor.

“Althoughe he kept his court out of the Cittie, yett cam hee
home of purpose for mee to delliver her Majestie’s letter and
present, and to kisse his hand, at wᶜʰ tyme I apoynted to
attend upon me xii gentlemen on horsebacke, vested in cloth of
gould and silver, a gentlem̄ usher, ii pages in white damaske,
20 menn in livery gownes, xii merchaunts, desently apparelled
merchaunt-like in blacke, and my sealf attired as richly as I
might.

“The captains of the Chowses and Spahees (Chiauses and Spahis)
were sent to accompany and entertayne mee to the Gʳ Signior
his pallace, where first in open court before the Gʳ Signior,
his Pashas, or Counsellors, I declared to them her Maᵗʸᵉ’ˢ
pleasure, salutations, and requests.

“Conferring about divers late accidents, espetially of her
Majestie’s forces against Spaine, and of the peace made
betweene him and the French Kinge, wᶜʰ thay all seemed to
dislike, we spent a smale tyme untill the banquett ordayned
for mee was provided; which being furnished, only I, Halul
Pasha, the Cheefe Vizier, and a first Pasha, late general of
_Scelestia_ (Silistria), sate at one Table, the other Pashas
satt apart by them sealves; at another, a lyttle distant from
us, satt the ii _Cadiliskers_, or cheefe Judges of all this
empire, and apart from them ii of the high Tresorors; by them
satt alone the highe chaunsellors, every one served accordinge
to his degree, but our Table furnished wᵗʰ the allowance
and dayenties as are usually served to the Gʳ Sʳ, in great
variety and abundance; wᶜʰ finished, order was sent by the Gʳ
Sʳ that before our entrance unto him bothe I and my gentlemenn
should be clothed in vests out of his Tresorie, wᶜʰ were there
scarcely found, yet had I ii, and ten for my gentlemenn; and
so, in company of the Vizeires, I entered into the presence
chamber, where the Grand Sigioʳ satt uppon a cushion of red
sattin most richly ymbrodred wᵗʰ pearls, and all his chamber
floored with Redd sattin Ritchly ymbrodered wᵗʰ gould; and,
omyttinge the sumptuousnes of the sight, coming to deliver
my Ambassadge unto him, I first salluted him in her Highnes’
name; secondly, declared to him the good intelligence betweene
her Highnes and his father,[1] and of the bennefitt therof
to both their dom̄nions and subieckts; thirdly, I ymformed
him of Her Majesty’s pleasure for my Confirmation in former
charge of Ambassador, requiringe therein not only his Highnes’
consent, but princely favour in all future occations; and,
lastly, recom̄ended unto him the affayres of her merchaunts
traffickinge in his dom̄nions, wher unto hee him sealf
answered as afore, sainge he did much reioyce at Her Majesty’s
frindshipp, and prayed God that shee might allwayes have the
victory over her enemyes as hether unto. Lastly, he tould me
I should receyve sattisfaction of all I desiered, Licensinge
me to departe. I was accompanied with Chiauses and other his
officers to my house, having binn both outward and homward
Salluted wᵗʰ divers tiers of artillery from the Shipp, for wᶜʰ
and the favour of the Grand Signoʳ shewed me that day ministred
many dayes after occation to speak of my Entertainment.

“But this while thinkinge my sealf sure of all things, the
French ambassador, with his bribe of 6,000 chickins,[2] did
not only over throughe our former graunt of counsolledge of
forresteeres, but all other demandes I made, besides the
confirmation of our ould Capittulations, the Vizeer denienge me
audience to shew reason for my just demands.”

[Then follows a long account of his difficulties owing to the
interference of the French ambassador, and certain details
concerning the war in Hungary; and the letter closes as
follows:—]

“I comitt yoʳ honnoʳ to Gode’s most mercifull protection this
21ᵗʰ of October 1599. Yoʳ honnoʳˢ most dewtifull

“Ever to comand,

“HENRY LELLO.”

_Addressed_—

“To the right Honᵇˡᵉ Sir Robert Cecill, knight, principal
secrʳⁱᵉ to the Queen’s most Exᵗ Magᵗⁱᵉ and Her Highnes’
honorable privie Counseill.”

§ 2.—OF THE DALLAM FAMILY.

Such was the state of affairs in Constantinople when Master Thomas Dallam, whose diary we here produce, went to present a complicated organ, which he had made, as a gift from Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mahomed III. His MS. diary was written just after the publication of Richard Hakluyt’s volumes of travels, or else it would in all probability have been included in them. From the foregoing remarks it will easily be seen why so handsome a gift was sent out with so much trouble; the Queen was anxious for the Sultan’s friendship and allegiance against her Catholic enemies. To further the interests of the infantile Levant Company such a present would be exceedingly useful, and, in choosing Dallam as the bearer of this present, Queen Elizabeth evidently selected, as subsequent events showed, the most skilled man in his craft that she could.

Some interesting notes with regard to this present may be gathered from the State Papers, Jan. 1596. For some time there had been a discussion about sending a present to the new Sultan of Turkey. The Levant merchants apparently thought it would imperil their own safety and their factories in Constantinople if Sir E. Barton’s papers were not made out by the Queen, and if the present did not come from her Majesty herself. Hence, out of compliance with their wishes, Sir E. Barton, though the Company’s nominee, was accredited as ambassador from Queen Elizabeth, and the present, which the Levant merchants no doubt paid for, purported to be from the Queen of England to the Sultan.

In the State Papers, January 31st, 1599, just a month before Dallam set out on his voyage, the following entry is made: “A great and curious present is going to the Grand Turk, which will scandalise other nations, especially the Germans.” This great and curious present was the organ which Dallam had built, and which he was about to take out in person.

Of the previous history of Thomas Dallam we know little. From the tombstone of his son in New College, Oxford, we gather that he came from the village of Dallam, in Lancashire, not far from Warrington. From the papers of the Blacksmiths’ Company we learn that he came up to London, and was apprenticed to that Company, and admitted as a liveryman of the same. In those days the Blacksmiths’ Company had supervision over many Companies, including the organ-builders, and in this branch of the craft Thomas Dallam was employed.

From Dr. Rimbault we learn many details concerning this celebrated family of organ-builders and the instruments they constructed. Of this particular one, which Dallam made, and which was set up in Whitehall for Queen Elizabeth’s approval prior to its being shipped off to Constantinople, there appears to be no other record; but, immediately on his return from the East, Thomas Dallam seems to have worked hard at his trade, and he and his sons constructed most of the principal organs of the seventeenth century.

In 1605-6 Dallam was engaged for fifty-eight weeks in constructing the organ of King’s College, Cambridge, for which purpose he closed his workshop in London, and for this work he received the sum of £371 17_s._ 1_d._ This organ was destroyed in the civil wars, but the case still remains. In 1607 he got £1 15_s._ for tuning the same organ, and a like sum for the sale of surplus tin, and his name frequently occurs in the College records till 1641. In 1613 Dallam made “new double organs” for Worcester Cathedral, and got £211. This organ was likewise destroyed in the rebellion.

On 29th of September 1626, Thomas Dallam was made a steward of the annual feast of the Blacksmiths’ Company, but did not put in an appearance, and was fined £10 for neglect of duty. In the following year he petitioned in court to be let off his stewardship, and his petition was granted him on payment of certain small fines.

Almost immediately after his return from Constantinople Thomas Dallam must have married, for his eldest son, Robert, was born in 1602, and was brought up by his father in the organ-building trade under the auspices of the Blacksmiths’ Company. Together, between 1624 and 1627, they put up an organ in Durham Cathedral, which was eventually sold to the Church of St. Michael-le-Belfry, York, where it remained till 1885, and was finally disposed of to Mr. Bell, organ-builder, York, for the sum of four pounds.

Robert Dallam also built an organ for Jesus College, Cambridge, for £200, and several others. Finally, we hear of him as engaged to build an organ for New College, Oxford; and he died at Oxford, May 31st, 1665, and, from his tomb in that College we learn certain particulars about the family, the concluding lines of which would seem rather to refer to his father than himself, for we have no record of his having travelled in distant lands. It runs as follows:—

“Hic jacet Dᵐⁿᵘˢ RobertUs Dallam Instrumenti Pneumatici (quod
vulgo organum nuncupant) peritissimus artifex filius Thomæ
Dallum de Dallum in comitat: Lancastriæ mortuus est die Maii
ultimo

“anno Domini 1665 ætatis suæ 63.

“Qui postquam diversas Europæ plagas hâc arte (quâ præcipue
claruit) exornasset solum hoc tandem, in quo requiescit cinere
suo insignivit.”

Ralph Dallam, another son of Thomas, also an organ-builder, constructed the organ which was put up in St. George’s Chapel after the Restoration, and also built organs in Rugby, Hackney, and Lynn Regis, and died whilst making the organ in Greenwich Chapel in 1672.

George Dallam, another son, lived in Purple Lane in 1672, and in 1686 added a “chaire organ” to Harris’s instrument in Hereford Cathedral.

Thus it will be seen that Thomas Dallam, the writer of the diary, was the progenitor of a distinguished family of organ-builders, whose work was in great request in the seventeenth century. We have also to thank him for the graphic account of the Imperial Court at Constantinople during the reign of Mahomed III, and incidents in seafaring life at that period, which add considerably to our knowledge of the state of nautical affairs as they existed in the days of Raleigh and Drake.

§ 3.—OF THE FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE LEVANT COMPANY.

It was understood from the first that the Levant Company should pay and appoint the consuls, ambassadors, and other officials of their Company, though difficulties arose on this point between the Government and the Company concerning the salary of Sir Edward Barton. Affairs seem to have gone on smoothly till 1600, when the monopoly was removed, and the Company had to struggle on as best it could against competition which proved almost fatal to it at the very outset of its career.

Accordingly, in 1605, we find petitions from the Company to James I, complaining that they could no longer pay the salaries of the ambassadors and consuls, and that they feared that the Turks might seize their factories and buildings in the Turkish towns. Lord Salisbury entered into consultation with Chief Justice Popham on the subject, and the result was that, on the 14th December 1606, letters patent were granted by James I which may really be said to have established the Company on a permanent basis. The five years’ terminable licences were made perpetual, and privileges were granted to several persons and their sons, and such others as should be after admitted. The Company was to have the monopoly of all the Levant trade: in fact, the English traffic of nearly all the Mediterranean was handed over exclusively to the Company, which was to be open to all merchants who could pay £50 towards the expenses of carrying on the trade, the salary of the ambassadors and consuls, and the presents which, from time to time, were necessary to be given to the Sultan to keep him favourably disposed, and the first year’s “imposition”, or tax of £5,322, was handed over to the Company to assist in tiding over a time of difficulty.

Thomas Glover, who had been one of Thomas Dallam’s companions on board the ship _Hector_ on his journey out, was ambassador at this time, with power to appoint consuls and regulate the trade for the Company. It does not appear what emolument he got from the Company, but it was doubtless considerable, as he was forbidden to trade on his own account, and, under his skilful management, the successful career of the Levant Company was inaugurated.

It was absolutely necessary in those early days of mercantile enterprise to give the monopoly of the Levant trade to one Company; only a rich and united body, with the privileges accorded to them by their capitulations, could carry on such trade. It was necessary, for the safety of the ships, that they should sail in large numbers for mutual protection from Dunkirkers, corsairs, and other hostile craft, and hence very strict penalties were imposed on private individuals who sought to carry on trade under the protection of the Company without actually belonging to it. The celebrated case of Bates, who refused to pay a tax to the Company on currants, and drove them off in his own cart from the wharf, was tried shortly after this, and when it was decided in the Company’s favour, their monopoly was clearly established.

In the reign of James I the Company received the name of “The Governor and Company of Merchants of England trading to the Levant Seas”, and the arms of a ship with three masts in full sail between two rocks. Their crest was a demi sea-horse salient; their supporters two sea-horses; and their motto, “Deo Respublicæ et amicis.”

In 1612, Mr. Paul Pindar, another of Thomas Dallam’s companions on board the ship _Hector_, succeeded Sir Thomas Glover as ambassador for the Company to the Porte.

In 1623, Sir T. Roe was ambassador. He got a salary of £1,800 per ann. from the Company, besides a portion of the consulage and other advantages, but at the same time he was forbidden to carry on a trade of any kind. During this period the Levant Company continued to make satisfactory progress, and the only thing to remark is the controversies which, during the reigns of James I and Charles I, raged between the regulated Companies, namely, the Levant Company and Merchant Adventurers, against the East India Company, which, as then constituted, they considered as the monopoly of a few which told against the monopoly of larger corporate bodies.

In 1643 further privileges were granted to the Levant Company. In an ordinance of both Houses, upholding the Levant Merchants, dated 9th of March 1643, the following points occur:—

“That for the better supportation and encouragement of the
Fellowship of merchants of England, trading to the Levant
Seas, which, besides the building and maintaining of divers
great ships, both for defence and burthen, the venting of
kerseys, sages, perpetuanas, and several other commodities hath
been found very serviceable and profitable to the State, by
advancing navigation, and transporting into foreigne parts for
severall years together above 20,000 broadclothes per annum,
besides other commodities whereby the poor people are sett at
worke, and the whole kingdome receive benefit. The Lords and
Commons do ordaine:—

“That the Fellowship of Merchants trading to the Levant Seas
shall continue a corporation; that they shall have free choice
and removal of all ministers by them maintained at home and
abroad, whether they be dignified and called by the name of
Ambassadors, Governours, Deputies, Consulls, or otherwise.

“That they shall have power to levie monies on the members
of their corporation, or on strangers; on goods shipped in
English bottoms, or on English goods in strange bottoms, which
shall goe into or come from the Levant Seas, for and towards
necessary charge, maintenance, and supply of their ministers,
officers, and government.

“That no person shall send ships into these parts limited by
their corporation, but such as are free brothers, or otherwise
licensed, each person to pay, if a mere merchant, £50, if above
twenty-one years of age, or £25 if under that age; and they
shall have power to fine persons disobeying their orders in a
sum not exceeding £20, or imprisoning their persons till the
said sum be paid.”

About this time the Levant Company suffered somewhat from the conflicting state of parties in England. Sir S. Crowe was appointed in 1642 as ambassador of the Levant Company; he was a staunch loyalist, and, during his tenure of office abroad, his goods in England were confiscated by the Parliamentarians. On hearing this, Sir S. Crowe imprisoned many of the English factors in Constantinople, and appropriated their goods. The Parliamentarians forthwith obliged the Company to send out another representative, Sir J. Bendish, who, after some difficulty, succeeded in establishing himself as the ambassador of England, and Sir S. Crowe was sent home. On arriving in London, he was impeached at the suit of the Company, condemned, and kept in prison till 1653.

The regulations of the Company with regard to their _employés_ were very strict in those days; none of the consuls under their authority might marry without the consent of the directors, and the factors or merchants at Constantinople and elsewhere in the Levant frequently received admonitions from the governing body at home against “sensuality, gambling, Sabbath-breaking, neglect of public worship”, and other irregularities of life in which the merchants, far from the influence of their strait-laced relatives at home, were prone to indulge.

In 1661 the Earl of Winchilsea went out on _The Plymouth_ as ambassador for the Company. Captain Hayward was in command of the vessel, with whom Pepys (p. 50) made merry at the Rhenish Wine House. Lord Winchilsea is described as “a jovial Lord, extremely favoured by Vizier Kiuprili”. Two Kiuprilis, father and son, were practically the rulers of Turkey from 1658 to the death of the latter in 1676. Both the Kiuprilis were men of exceedingly good powers of organisation, and raised Turkey to comparative power, despite the weakness of her princes. The Sultan Mahomed IV, about whom Dr. Covel in his MS. tells us so much, was a man of weak character, devoted only to the chase, and left the organisation of the empire to his Vizier. From him Lord Winchilsea obtained further capitulations, an account of which is given us by his secretary, Paul Ricaut, in a pamphlet entitled _The Capitulations and Articles published by Paul Ricaut, Esquire, Secretary to his Excellencie the Lord Ambassador, in 1663_, and addressed to the Governors of the Levant Company. In this pamphlet he says: “The first capitulations took place 80 years before, in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and have been enlarged in the time of allmost every ambassador, with such alterations as the state of affaires, and the abuses, and the iniquities of the times suggested.” The principal grievance which this set of capitulations rectified was “that English ships should be exempt from search for foreign goods”. Mahomed IV, in his address to Charles II, on the occasion of the granting of these capitulations, speaks in high-flown language of “the Queen of the aforesaid Kingdom” who commenced the Levant trade.

A curious and ludicrous instance of the fanaticism of the times occurred in 1661. An individual called “John the Quaker” arrived at Constantinople, and began to preach at the street corners repentance to the Turks in his own native tongue. Naturally enough, the Mohammedans looked upon him as a lunatic, and consigned him to a mad-house, where he languished for eight months, until his nationality was discovered, and he was taken before Lord Winchilsea. On entering the ambassador’s presence, true to the regulations of his creed, John refused to remove his hat, whereupon he was bastinadoed; and, on his clothes being examined, a letter was discovered in his pocket addressed to the Sultan, politely telling that monarch that he was the scourge employed by God to punish wicked Christians.

There was a distinct revival at this juncture in the condition of the power of the Ottoman Turks at Constantinople; under the severe rule of the elder Kiuprili, and the firm but temperate jurisdiction of his son Ahmed, both internal and external affairs prospered favourably. Ahmed Kiuprili conducted the wars with Austria with a fair amount of success. He won Crete for the Turks, in 1669, from the Venetian general Morosini; the wars with Sobieski, under his guidance, were, with certain fluctuations, favourable to the Turks. He, in 1675, instituted the levy of 3,000 boys from the Christian population to fill the ranks of the Janissaries; and three days after the peace of Zuranna, by which the Turks regained much of their lost military prestige, he died, very shortly after the events related in such minute detail by Dr. Covel in our second manuscript, and very shortly after the ratification of further capitulations with the Levant Company at Adrianople; the incidents concerning the obtaining of which Dr. Covel relates so graphically.

§ 4.—OF DR. JOHN COVEL.

The writer of the second MS. we have before us is mentioned by Evelyn in his _Diary_ (ii, 338) as “Covel, the great Oriental traveller”. Evidently he intended either to publish a work himself, or that his diary should be published shortly after his death, for he divided part of his MS. into chapters, put in illustrations, and collected together everything connected with himself, every scrap of letter and paper that would be of use, even down to his _testamur_ when he took his B.A. in 1657; but this mass of MS. has remained hidden in the British Museum, and has never yet seen the light of day. It is easy to see why any publisher would recoil from bringing out so prolix a work, for the Doctor is wearisome in the extreme. Before we leave Deal, in his first chapter, at the outset of his travels, we are treated to at least thirty closely-written pages on the wonders of the deep, which he picked up there; soon follows a long dissertation on sea-sickness, and its supposed causes; and whenever he came near any place of archæological interest, such as Carthage, Ephesus, Constantinople, etc., he gives us enough information to fill a good-sized volume on each spot. Consequently, it has been found necessary to eliminate much in Dr. Covel’s exceedingly bulky diaries.

His narrative is, however, extremely interesting on many points: during the six-and-a-half years he resided at Constantinople, from 1670 to 1677, he noticed everything; his sketches of life, costumes, and manners are minute and life-like. Sir George Wheeler says, in his volume of travels: “Dr. Covel, then chaplain to his Majesty’s ambassador there, amongst many curiosities shewed us some Turkish songs set to musick; which he told us were, both for sense and music, very good: but past our understanding.” Being, as he was, intimately connected with the embassy, he had ample opportunity for studying the politics of the time. Dr. Covel was present at the granting of the capitulations of 1676, which gained for the Levant Company privileges which established it, for the ensuing century and a half of its existence, on an unapproachable foundation.

John Covel was born at Horningsheath, in Suffolk, in 1638, and educated at Bury St. Edmunds and Christ’s College, Cambridge, in the hall of which his portrait, by Valentine Ritz, is still to be seen. He studied medicine in early life with a view to being a physician, which will account for his intimate knowledge of botany and drugs; but eventually, being elected to a Fellowship at his College, he changed his line in life and took Holy Orders.

Covel was distinguished for his erudition, and was a scholar of no mean repute, as his MS. shows; and on the Restoration, in 1661, he was deputed to make a Latin oration in the hall of Christ’s College, to celebrate the return of the Stuart family to the throne of England. He composed a long poem also to celebrate this event, a few stanzas of which I give here:

“The Horrible winter’s gone,
And we enjoy a cheerful spring;
The kind approach of the Sun
Gives a new birth to every thing.

“The trees with blossoms are crowned now,
Which then did penance in snow;
And there with busy noise the Bee
Practise mysterious chemistry.

“Just so, great Prince, when you arrived,
Each drooping heart revived;
Your glorious rays and divine influence
Gave us new life and sense.

“Too rigid Fate
Had blasted Church and State;
And, with a boisterous storm,
Put all things out of form.

“Oh, may your glories ever shine!
Always rising still more bright.
What never stops at any height
Can never decline.”

In 1669 Covel was appointed as chaplain to the ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Daniel Harvey, by the Levant Company, and Charles II gave him a dispensation to go to Constantinople and hold his Fellowship at the same time: it runs as follows:

“Given at our Court at Dover, 19th day of May, in the 22nd
year of our reign. Our will and pleasure is that you dispense
with the absence of the said John Covel, so that he receive
and enjoy (by Himself or his assignees) all and singular the
profits, dividends, stipends, emoluments, and dues belonging to
his fellowship in as full and ample manner to all intents and
purposes as if he were actually resident in the College.”

During his residence at Constantinople he witnessed many important sights, notably the great _fêtes_ at Adrianople in honour of the circumcision of Prince Mustapha, and the marriage of the Sultan’s daughter, which were the most noted _fêtes_ of the century in Turkey,[3] and also the granting of the capitulations during the time of the plague. The next nine years of Covel’s life were spent in travel. In 1679 he returned to England, and immediately afterwards took his D.D., and was chosen as Margaret preacher of Divinity at Cambridge. In 1681 he got one of his college livings of Kegworth, and was soon afterwards appointed as chaplain to the Princess of Orange, and resided at the Hague. In October 1685 the Prince of Orange intercepted a letter written by Dr. Covel to Skelton, the English ambassador, giving an account of Prince William’s tyrannical behaviour to his wife. Dr. Covel was forthwith dispatched home again in great disgrace; he never spoke of what had transpired, and it was long a mystery. There is, however, a letter to Princess Mary amongst his papers, in which he speaks of the scurrilous reports which alleged that he tried to make mischief between the King and the Prince, and between the Prince and your Royal Highness, and concludes, “in the words of the Royal Martyr, your most glorious grandfather, that as He hath given us afflictions to try our patience, so He would give us Patience to bear our afflictions.”

Dr. Covel was twice Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the first time in 1689, when King William visited the University, and his letters show a considerable degree of anxiety as to how the King, whom he had maligned as Prince, would receive him. In reply to these anxieties, King William sent a curt answer, stating “that he could distinguish between Dr. Covel and the Vice-Chancellor of the University”.

Dr. Covel was not fortunate with his voluminous writings; he got into another scrape with the Court in a book entitled _The Interpreter of Words and Terms_; it was ordered to be destroyed, being, as it was supposed, “in some points very derogatory to the supreme power of this Crown”. He also wrote on gardening and fruit-trees; but his _magnum opus_ was a work on the Greek Church, which he published shortly before his death, which remained for long the standard work on the subject. It is entitled: _Some Account of the present Greek Church, with Reflections on their present Doctrine and Discipline, particularly on the Eucharist and the rest of their seven Pretended Sacraments_. In his Preface he apologises for the long delay, owing to his “itinerant life”, and having been “chained to a perpetual college bursar’s place”. It is evident from his diary that, when at Constantinople, Dr. Covel gave himself up to this study very closely, in fact, he was deputed to do so, for the controversy was then at its height which was started by M. Arnold, Doctor of the Sorbonne, as to whether the Greeks held the doctrine of transubstantiation or not, and a union between the Eastern and Western Churches was much feared by the Protestants. The eccentric Marquis de Nointel, who was the French ambassador to the Porte at that time, was most eager to bring this about, and as he was on very friendly terms with Sir John Finch, it was suspected that he used his influence to win over the English ambassador; hence Dr. Covel had an important task to perform, and no wonder he writes so bitterly on the ignorance and corruption of the Greek clergy. To show his zeal, the Marquis de Nointel celebrated Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, 1673, in the cave of Antiparos, with a broken-off stalactite as his communion-table, on which may still be read the words he carved:—

“Hic ipse Christus adfuit
Ejus natali die mediâ nocte celebrato
MDCLXXIII.”

The ambassador was accompanied by five hundred people—his domestics, merchants, Greeks, and Turks—and he was so impressed by it, that he repeated the experiment on two subsequent occasions. The proposed union of the Churches, however, never came to anything, and by the time Dr. Covel’s book came out the controversy was at an end and forgotten.

Dr. Covel was appointed Master of Christ’s College in 1688, and retained this position until his death in 1722, at the ripe age of eighty-four.

The good work that Sir John Finch did for the Company in getting the capitulation of 1676, as Dr. Covel relates, in the teeth of the plague at Adrianople, did much for the security of trading and property in the Levant. Attached to these capitulations is the following clause: “That two ships’ loads of figs and currants should be allowed to be annually exported from Smyrna for the use of the King’s kitchen.” Sir John Finch was the son of the Speaker of the House of Commons, and was brought up as a physician, together with his bosom companion Thomas Baines; they studied together in England, and in Padua, and when Sir John was appointed as Minister to Tuscany, he got Charles II to attach his friend as physician to the legation, and also to bestow on him the honour of knighthood. When Sir John Finch was moved to Constantinople Sir Thomas Baines accompanied him in the same capacity; they were together with Covel during the trying time of the plague at Adrianople, and frequent allusion is made to them both in the diary. They were known in Constantinople as the ambassador and the chevalier, the two inseparable friends, whose attachment to one another was as romantic as that of Damon and Pythias. Sir Thomas Baines died in Constantinople in 1680, and, in great grief, his friend had his body embalmed and sent home to be buried in Christ’s College. Two years later, immediately on his return to England, Sir John Finch himself died, and, by special request, was buried in the same tomb as his friend, with the same marble slab over them, on which Henry More wrote a touching epitaph. Jointly, they endowed two scholarships and two fellowships for Christ’s College, and are still jointly thanked as benefactors of that very College over which their friend and companion in adversity, Dr. Covel, ruled for forty years after their deaths.

§ 5.—OF THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE LEVANT COMPANY.

From the life of Dudley North, afterwards Sir Dudley, son of Lord North, and ambassador for the Company to the Porte, which life was written by his son, we get an interesting insight into the life and times of those Merchant Adventurers in the seventeenth century, who were undoubtedly the founders of our national fortunes and national pre-eminence.

Dudley North was born in 1641, and went out to Smyrna as supercargo, and was apprenticed to a Turkey merchant when eighteen years of age, with a capital of £400. For many years he lived a most frugal life, making himself master of the Turkish language, and keeping himself aloof from the extravagant and luxurious lives which the English merchants in the Smyrniote factories lived in those days. When they “procured a pack of hounds, and hunted in the country, after the English way”, young North resisted the temptation to buy a horse, and went out hunting on an ass. He was a young man sure of eventual success. On his subsequent removal to Constantinople, and employment in the factory of Messrs. Hedges and Palmer, he lived in the building itself, and looked after the bookkeeping, and gained his first credit by getting in the outstanding debts of the firm. He made himself master of the “rules of Turkish justice”, and at once set about to institute five hundred claims in the law courts. These claims he conducted himself in the Turkish Courts in the Turkish language, and won a great many of those which his employers had hitherto looked upon as hopeless.

He soon set up business on his own account, and as it rapidly increased, he sent for his brother Montagu, from Aleppo, and together the brothers built up for themselves the fabric of a colossal fortune.

The brothers North appear to have dealt largely in jewels, with which they tempted the women of the Seraglio, and to have lent money at from 20 to 30 per cent. to impecunious Pashas. Dudley North became treasurer of the Levant Company in Constantinople, did excellent work in the survey of the city, and eventually concluded his successful career by being appointed ambassador for the Company to the Porte. He was a man of strong business capacity, and “his first care”, says his son, “on setting up for himself, was to get a fire-tight room to secure his goods from fire, and a sofa-room in which to entertain the Turks.”

About this time we hear ever more and more, in the Levant Company’s dealings with the Turks, of the _avanias_, or unauthorised demands made by the Turks on foreign merchants. Sir Dudley North at once took up this question, and wrote himself an interesting account of these encroachments on the capitulations granted to the Turkey merchants. The _avanias_ had their origin in small matters of etiquette; gradually they spread to commerce and merchandise, and in 1685 came the great edict, which obliged every foreigner who had married a Turkish subject, himself to become a subject of the Porte, and these men were forbidden to leave the country without the Sultan’s consent.

This edict has given rise to the still numerous Levantine families to be found in the Turkish Empire, families bearing English, French, and Italian names, and tracing their origin to those nations, but practically absorbed in the Ottoman Empire. It was a great blow to many artisans and merchants who had married and settled in the Levant. No less than forty French watchmakers, who had married Greek wives and settled in Galata, were obliged to become Turkish subjects in spite of the remonstrances of the French ambassador, and the case of Mr. Pentloe settled the question with regard to the English. He had married a Greek lady, and on his death left a will appointing two English merchants as his executors, obliging them to realise his property, and send his widow and her two children to England. Accordingly, the executors proceeded to carry out his wishes, but the Turkish Government seized Mrs. Pentloe and her children on embarkation, and threw the two executors into prison, from which they did not emerge for some considerable period; all Mr. Pentloe’s money was confiscated, and our ambassador could get no redress. This iniquitous _avania_ was not repealed for a hundred years afterwards, and may be taken as the origin of most of the so-called Levantine families, great numbers of which are to be found in Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonika, and other trade centres in the Turkish Empire.

The progress of the Levant Company was steady, and prosperity attended their commerce. Notwithstanding, in 1681 we find the Turkey merchants petitioning Parliament against the East India Company, and begging for permission to have “exercise of trade in the Red Sea, and all other dominions of the Grand Signior, and to forbid the East India Company to import raw or wrought silks”; and further stating that as their freights were “raw silks, gaules, grograms, yarn, cotton, etc., and as they, not being a joint-stock Company, did not export much gold”, that the East India Company ought to be restricted from importing such things as they considered they only had the monopoly of. To this petition the East India Company drew up an exhaustive reply, and Parliament set the petition on one side.

For the first three decades of the last century the prosperity of the Levant Company may be said to have been at its height. In the years 1716 and 1717 they exported to Turkey “43,000 cloths, and a very great quantity of lead, tin, sugar, etc.” In 1718, for the greater protection of merchants, “general ships”, which sailed together in large squadrons, were appointed, and the manufacturers had nothing to do but to convey their goods to the wharves, consign them to the shipowners, and pay the freight. These general ships, as they were called, used to leave England about July 1st, so as to have good weather in the open seas, and reach Turkey about the right time for the winter markets; then they returned home with raw silks, mohair, and other products of the East.

For some cause or another, in 1753 the condition of the Levant Company was not so satisfactory. In this year they sent a petition to Parliament for the remodelling of their charter on more favourable conditions. In this petition they stated that a quarrel between Sir Kenelm Digby and the Venetian admiral in the Bay of Scanderoon had cost the Company £20,000; that the indiscretion of a young man at Aleppo had imperilled the lives of all Europeans, and incurred enormous losses on the Company; that they had to pay an indemnity of £12,000 for prisoners taken in war, and other similar misfortunes had fallen upon them. Consequently, Parliament thought fit to grant them their petition: they were to have unmolested choice of the ministers maintained by them at home and abroad, ambassadors, governors, deputies, consuls, etc.; nobody except free brothers of the corporation could send ships into those parts, and very stringent rules were made on this point, full powers being given to the Company to fine, imprison, and send home in custody any individuals who infringed this rule; they were allowed to make their own laws and by-laws, though these had to receive the sanction of the Board of Trade; and, with various little assistances from Government in minor points, the Company of Levant Merchants again became exceedingly flourishing, and continued to be so until the end of its days.

At the end of the last century it would appear that the Company consisted of eight hundred members, each and all calling themselves “Turkey Merchants”. The wages of their officials, that is to say, the ambassador, secretaries, chaplains, consuls, and physicians at Constantinople, Smyrna, Aleppo, Alexandria, Algiers, Patras, etc., came to £15,000 per annum. Many of our consulates in the East, as they now stand, were built by them, and the fine embassy at Constantinople cost the Company £10,000. The Porte gave the ground for this building out of gratitude to England for driving the French out of Egypt, and the opening of it was hallowed by the liberation of many Christian slaves, mostly Maltese, who came in a body to the ambassador to tender their heartfelt thanks.[4]

In 1803 it was that the British Government first assumed the appointment and payment of the ambassador and his secretaries; this was the first step towards the disestablishment of the Company. The Eastern Question was then beginning to make itself felt, the Balkan States were in arms against Turkey, and, the interests of trade being naturally subordinate to foreign policy, the Levant Company had to give way.

In 1825, when the disintegration of the Turkish Empire appeared imminent, the Levant Company came to an end. Mr. Canning’s communication to them ran as follows: “It results solely from considerations of public expediency, and in no degree from any disrespect, or disposition to impute any blame to their past administration.” The fact was obvious: the new order of things had to supersede the old; the political atmosphere was full of ideas of free trade; and the aristocratic, exclusive Company of Turkey Merchants had to give way, and they did so gracefully. The deed of surrender was drawn up in 1825, “of all the several grants, privileges, liberties, powers, jurisdictions, and immunities granted and conferred by their charters”; and in solemn conclave the Company of merchants dissolved themselves, after honourably providing pensions for their officials, and handing over a substantial balance to the treasury.

During its life of 244 years the Levant Company had had a most exemplary and noble career, beneficial not only to its members, but to the English nation, building up for her her commerce, and making her name respected in the East. It would take a volume to enumerate the deeds of their great men, and how they have not only contributed to our commercial success, but have embellished our literature with admirable studies both of the past and of the present. Sir Paul Ricaut and Sir James Porter wrote admirable works on the policy and government of the Turkish people. Montague, Covel, and Pococke gave some of the earliest accounts of the people of the East in our tongue.

Under the influence of the Company, considerable attention was paid to archæology: Spon and Wheeler, Chishull, Shaw, and last, but not least, Lord Elgin, who rescued the marbles of the Parthenon from being damaged in the bombardment of 1827. The Company’s doctors used to make a special study of the plague. _Russell on the Plague_ was quite the standard work of its time, and Dr. Maclean also made a special study of that dread disease; and to the efforts of these men we may almost say that we owe the gradual diminution and eventual eradication of the malady.

The rescuing of slaves from corsairs, the liberation of oppressed Christians, whether they happened to be English, Greeks, or Armenians, will be for ever one of the noblest and proudest of our actions. Without the influence of the Levant Company, Greece would probably have never succeeded in establishing her independence, and the Mussulmans would have effectually eradicated the Christian populations of the East; and it is a question for grave thought, as to whether our free and enlightened Government, during the half-century that it has had control over our actions in the East, has been as active and as influential as the Company of Turkey Merchants, who could draw the sword as well as the purse-strings, and were not hampered by the parsimonious feelings of those who have to draw up an economical budget to present to the people whose goodwill they wish to retain.

LIST OF ENGLISH AMBASSADORS TO THE PORTE IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES.

Mr. WILLIAM HARBORNE 1588.
Mr. EDWARD BARTON 1588-1597.
Mr. HENRY LELLO 1597-1607.
Sir THOMAS GLOVER 1607-1611.
Mr. PAUL PINDAR 1611-1619.
Sir JOHN EYRE[5] 1619-1621.
Sir THOMAS ROE[6] 1622-1628.
Sir PETER WYCH 1628-1639.
Sir SACKVILLE CROWE[7] 1639-1647.
Sir THOMAS BENDYSH[8] 1647-1661.
The EARL OF WINCHILSEA 1661-1668.
Sir DANIEL HARVEY 1668-1672.
Sir JOHN FINCH[9] 1672-1681.
LORD CHANDOS 1681-1687.
Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL 1687-1691.
Sir WILLIAM HUSSEY 1691 (June-Sept.)
LORD WILLIAM PAGET 1693-1702.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

P. xxiii, _for_ “Sir J. Bendish” _read_ “Sir T. Bendysh”.

Pp. xxxiii-v, Sir Dudley North was _not_ Ambassador, but Treasurer, of the Levant Company.

Pp. xxxix-xl, Mr. Albert Gray adds: “An Act of Parliament (6 Geo. IV, c. 33, Royal assent 10 June 1825) was passed which, after reciting the Letters Patent of James I, and the subsequent Acts relating to the Levant trade, recites that it would be beneficial that the exclusive rights and privileges of the Company should cease and determine, and that ‘the said Governor and Company are willing and desirous to surrender up the said Letters Patent into His Majesty’s hands’. In pursuance of this Act a deed was forthwith executed surrendering the Letters Patent to the Crown. One section of the Act is now of some historical importance. It provided that ‘all such rights and duties of jurisdiction and authority over His Majesty’s subjects resorting to the ports of the Levant for the purposes of trade or otherwise, as were lawfully exercised and performed’ by the Company’s consuls, should thenceforth be exercised or performed ‘by any consuls or other officers respectively as His Majesty may be pleased to appoint for the protection of the trade of His Majesty’s subjects in the ports and places, etc.’ This was the first statutory assignment to Royal consuls of jurisdiction in places outside the dominions of the Crown. From this Act sprang in due time the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1843 (now replaced by that of 1890), under which British subjects and British protected persons enjoy the protection of British courts of law in almost every independent Oriental country from Morocco to Corea, and by means of which the foundations of law and order are being laid in the great protectorates of Africa.”

P. 11, “North Cape” is Cape Finisterre, known of old to the seamen of the Mediterranean as the _North Cape_.

P. 16, “Morottome” is probably Marabout, on the coast of Africa, near a “fort in ruins”. See Admiralty Chart, sect. vii, 252.

P. 63 _note_, _for_ “Paul Pinder” _read_ “Paul Pindar”.

P. 84, “Chorlaye in Lancashier”, is the town of Chorley, on a hill on the Chor, nine miles south-south-east of Preston.

Pp. 95, 96, “Grande Malligam” is Malaga. “Alama” may be identified with Almeria, a large seaport of Spain, _not_ with Alhama, as stated in the note.

P. 96, “Mount Chegos” is probably Serra de Monchique, north of Cape St. Vincent, _not_ Los Guigos, behind Algeciras, as stated in the note.

P. 102, “Virginia men” alludes to ships bound for America; “Streightsmen” to those bound for the Mediterranean.

P. 106, “Les Scenes” refers to the cluster of islands known as the _Chaussée de Sein_, off the coast of Brittany (cf. _Sailing Directions_, Glossary, p. 34, ed. for the Hakl. Soc.).

P. 133, “Romania” was the name originally given to the whole of the western Roman Empire. This term, together with Roumelia, has now become much circumscribed.

P. 133, _Maniotes_ were the inhabitants of Mani, the southern portion of the Peleponnesus. This term has probably the same origin as Romani.

P. 140, line 15, _for_ “work” _read_ “word”.

P. 141, _Agnus castus_ is the oleander.

P. 143, “Magla” should be Nagara, exactly on site of ancient Abydos.

P. 153, “Kalenderis” are, as stated by Dr. Covel, a sect of dervishes.

P. 153, “Jamurluck” is a tunic.

P. 154, “Bellonius.” This is Pierre Belon, a well-known French archæologist, who wrote _Thesaurus Græcarum antiquitatum_, Antwerp, 1589.

P. 196, “Mr. Cook.” This must be the Mr. Coke who was present at the solemnities, and wrote the following:—“A True Narrative of the Great Solemnity of the Circumcision of Mustapha, Prince of Turkey, eldest son of Sultan Mahomed, present Emperor of the Turks. Together with an account of the Marriage of his Daughter to his great Favourite Mussaip at Adrianople. As it was sent in a letter to a Person of Honour.

“By Mr. Coke, Secretary of the Turkey Company; Being in Company with his Excellency the Lord Embassador, Sir John Finch. London, 1676.” Reprinted in _Harleian Miscellany_.