CONTENTS.
| Portrait of Dr. Covel, photographed from the painting at Christ’s College, Cambridge, by kind permission of Vice-Chancellor J. Peile | [frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| Introduction | [i] |
| List of English Ambassadors to the Porte in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries | [xlii] |
| Addenda et Corrigenda | [xliii] |
| Dallam’s Travels (1599-1600) | [1] |
| Dr. Covel’s Diary (1670-1679) | [99] |
| Index | [289] |
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.