The Travels of Pietro della Valle in India , edited by Mr. Edward Grey, in two volumes, have been issued to members during the year. More recently, a volume containing Mr. Markham’s translation of the Journal of Columbus’ First Voyage , together with documents relating to the voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar Corte-Real, has also been issued. Mr. Theodore Bent’s Early Voyages to the Levant , comprising the Diary of Thomas Dallam, and extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel, is now ready for

Examined and found correct, CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM. WORKS ISSUED BY The Hakluyt Society....

No. LXXXVII. PORTRAIT OF Dr. COVEL , From the Painting in Christ’s College, Cambridge. James Hyatt. EARLY VOYAGES AND TRAVELS IN THE LEVANT. I.—THE DIARY OF MASTER THOMAS DALLAM, 1599-1600. II.—EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARIES OF DR. JOHN COVEL, 1670-1679. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LEVANT COMPANY OF TURKEY MERCHANTS. Edited with an Introduction and Notes BY J. THEODORE BENT, F.S.A., F.R.G.S. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY, 4, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C. M.DCCC.XCIII. LONDON: PRINTED BY CHAS. J.

Clements R. Markham, Esq. , C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S. , President . Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson , K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., Associé Étranger de L’Institut de France , Vice-President . Lord Aberdare , G.C.B., F.R.S. Vice-Admiral Lindesay Brine. Robert Brown, Esq. , M.A., Ph.D. Miller Christy, Esq. The Right Hon. Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff , G.C.S.I., late Pres. R.G.S. F. Ducane Godman, Esq. , F.R.S. Albert Gray, Esq. C. P. Lucas, Esq. A. P. Maudslay, Esq. Captain Nathan , R.E. Admi

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

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 anxiou

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

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

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 capi

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 ‘th

A brefe Relation of my Travell [18] from The Royall Cittie of London towardes The Straites of Mariemediteranum, and what hapened by the waye. The shipp whearin I was to make my voyege to Constantinople, Lyinge at Graves ende, I Departed from Londone in a pare of ores, with my chiste and suche provition as I had provided for that purpose, the nynthe of Februarie 1598 (1599), being Frydaye. Comminge to Graves ende, I wente aborde our shipp, Called the Heckter, and thare placed my chiste, my beding

Sept. 21. In the morning we had a fresh gale at N.N.E., and it so continued between N. and E. a fair wind for us. About half-an-hour after eleven we set sail out of the Downes, being seven general ships, for the Levant; Captain Partridge in the Turkey Merchant, for Scanderoon. Our convoy were, Capt. Robinson, in the Greenwich, [180] as Admiral (who was to leave us at the next end of Candia, and go on to Scanderoon with the Turkey Merchant), and Capt. Wild, in the Assurance, as Vice-Admiral, who