140 Eliz, Naval Expeditions^ &c of the English, Book l!'

1561.

He repajfesfiv CaspianSea ;

And returnsto Muscow.

Jenkinsonentrt/fiedwith Com-mijjionsfromfour Sove-reignPrinces.

" same be known unto Us, then wecf will that the said Customers and Of-" ficers shall lose, and be put out of" their said Offices, with our farther" Displeasure, and the said Englijh" Merchants to have restored all such" Mony andjWares as Our Customers" have taken of them, for our said" Custom. And whensoever the said" English Merchants, or their Factors," ffiall bring any Manner of Wares" meet for our Treasury, then Our" Treasurer shall take the said Wares" into Our Treasury, and shall give" unto the said English Merchants, ei-" ther ready Mony, or raw Silks, to the“ Value of their said Wares. And" wheresoever this Our Letter of Pri-", vileges ffiall be seen and read, with-" in .Our Dominions, We streightly" will and command, that it take Ef-" sect, and be obeyed in all Points.

" Dated at Our Palace, at ' Zavat,," sealed with Our Princely Seal, and" firmed by Our Secretary, in the." twelfth Year of Our Reigns '

Hacicluyt dates this Pmjlege, the.fourteenth of Aprils But Jenkinson did.not arrive there ’till the fifteenth. Hestayed there but seven Days, and thenreturned to Shabran , whence he senthis Goods on Camels to the Caspian Sea,and arrived there himself soon after. Hearrived, the thirtieth of March, at Aflra-can , where he staid ’till the tenth ofJune. He went up the River Volga ,against the Stream, came to Ca fan, thefifteenth of July, and the twentieth ofAugust to Muscow.

W e find, bjHackluyt, that Jenkinson,besides his Negociations ioxEngland, andin particular for theSociety of Merchants -Adventurers, in whose immediate Ser-vice he was, had, for this Voyage toVersa, a Commission from the Czar ofMuscovy, to traffick likewise for his Ac-count, and, in his Letter to the Society,

he mentions a Return of jewels, and 1wrought Silks, of divers Colours andSorts, with which, he fays, the Czarwas highly satisfied. And, in his Re-turn he had, besides this, the Honourto be entrusted with two Commissions,from the two Kings of Hircanid andGeorgia to the Czar. He remained thatWinter at Muscow, and insinuated him-self so much in the Favour of the Czar,that he obtained new and more amplePrivileges than the former. The eightand twentieth of Jnne, of the Year 1564.he departed from Muscow, and embark-ing the ninth of July, on Board theSwallow, at Colmogro, arrived the eight Pttur« Sand twentieth of September, at London. on 0 ’The Queen’s Letters to the Czar ofMuscovy ,. and the Sophy of Persa, sent.,by Jenkinson, and the Company’s In-structions to him, for this Voyage, Ihave, for Brevity’s Sake, omitted, in myRelation above ; But the curious Rea-der, who may be desirous of seing them,will find them at large in Hackluyt ,.preceeding his Account of this Voy-age. ,

Be bore Jenkinson departed from AlcoC ^/Muscow, to return to London, he dispatch- ^sssssed Mhomas Alcock, George Wren, and Harris'^ 0 !;Richard Chenie, Servants of the Compa- P- 1 -A sny, on the fame Voyage, to CasbinVersa. I find nothing worthy of Re- ' ' "mark in this Undertaking, but what was.oh served in the former, only that theKing of Hircania, who had been so-particularly gracious to Jetikinson, aba-ted very much of his Favour to these ;

And that, in their Return, Alcock wasstain, in the Way between Leuvaklaand Shirwan, some think by Robbers,for the Sake of Plunder ; But others,that his Death was procured by a Noble-man, whom he had offended, by ear-nestly demanding a Debt due tp theCompany.

CHAP.