184

1581.

Queen Eli-zabeth'*Letters Pa-tents.

Eliz. Naval Expeditions, <3cc of the English, Book ll.

XIX. If any of Our own Ships ofWar shall, at any Time, meet anyEnglish Ships, at Sea, laden with Mer-chandize, they shall suffer them pea-ceably, and as Friends, to pass,and not do them any Wrong; In thefame Manner as the French, Vmetians,and other Nations, our Confederates,are entitled to do, by Virtue of Arti-cles and Privileges granted them, byUs, for that Purpose ; And let no Manpresume to violate this Our DivineLaw and Privilege.

XX. If any of their Ships, eithergreat or small, shall, in the Course oftheir Voyages, or, in any Har-bour, into which they shall come, bestopp’d or arrested, let no Man pre-sume to detain them ; But rather letthem be aiding or assisting to them.

XXL If any Thieves or Robbersshall forcibly take away any of theirShips and Merchandizes, these Thievesor Robbers shall be diligently soughtfor, and be punished with all Severity.

XXII. Lastly, all the Beglerbegs,and Zanziacbegs, Our Captains, OurSlaves and Servants of Captains,frequent-ing the Seas; As likewise all Our Judges,Officers of Our Customs and Commandersof Ships called Reiz, and free Reiz,all these shall be obliged to conform tothe Tenour of these Articles and Privi-leges ; And as long as the Queen of Eng-land, on her Part, shall duely keep andstrictly observe the League and Peace,expressed in this Privilege, We also, onOur Part, do charge and command thefame so long to be strictly kept and ob-served.

Given at Conjlantinople, in the 988.Vear of Our most Holy Prophet, in theBeginning of the Month of June, and,in the Year of Jesus, 1580.

The Letters Patents or Privilegesaranted by Queen Elizabeth, for theEncouragement of this Trade, as men-

tioned above, are too extensive to findPlace here; I shall therefore only, ingeneral, observe, chat they were grant-ed to Sir Edward Osborne, '"Thomas Smith,of London, Esq; Richard Staper andWilliam Garret, of London, Merchants,their Executors and Administrators, andto such other Persons as Sir EdwardOsborne and Richard Staper, exclusiveof the other two Patentees, should no-minate and appoint, as their Copartners,not exceeding the Number of twelve,the four first nominated included, andtwo other Persons to be nominated bythe Crown, with Privilege, for theTerm of seven Years, to trade and traf-fick, exclusive of all others, to and fromthe Dominions of the Grand Sig nor, withLiberty of making By-Laws, &c. SirEdward Osborne was appointed Gover-nour of the Society for these sevenYears, or, in Case of his Decease, Mr.Richard Staper ; But in Case of boththeir Demises, before the Expiration ofthat Time, then a Governour to be e-lected, by the Society, for the Residueof the Term. Their Ships had the Li-berty allowed them of bearing the Armsof England, on their Tops, with a RedCross over them. The Society was o-bliged, after the first Year, to exportand import, yearly, as many Goods andMerchandizes, as the Custom and Sub-sidy should amount to five HundredPounds, provided they or their Shipsmet with no Let, Hindrance or Misfor-tune, in their Trade, as should preventit.

These were the principal Articles ofthese Letters Patents, which were datedthe eleventh of September 1581. TheReader may see them at large in Hack-luyt.

In Consequence of these Privileges,several Voyages were undertaken, todifferent Parts of the Levant, of whichwe find Accounts in Harris and Hack-luyt ; But, as many of them contain no-thing extraordinary, I shall only enlargeon such, wherein I shall find somethingparticular, and worthy of the Reader’sNotice.

i 5 Sf'

CHAP.