Early voyages and travels in the Levant

by John Covel; Thomas Dallam

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.