Cyprus Under the Turks, 1571-1878; A Record Based on the Archives of the English Consulate in Cyprus Under the Levant Company and After Book

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1921 Original Publisher: Oxford University Press Subjects: Cyprus History / Ancient / General History / Middle East / General Social Science / Archaeology Travel / Europe / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II THE LEVANT COMPANY IN CYPRUS 1626-1825 'from 1511 to 1534,'says Theodore Bent in his Introduction to Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant? ' we hear of certain " tall ships belonging to London, Southampton, and Bristol, which made voyages to the East, trading with Sicily, Crete, Chios, and sometimes Cyprus, Tripoli, and Beyrout in Syria" ; but there appears to have been no systematic commerce carried on in English bottoms in those days, most of the trade between the Levant and England being conducted by the Venetians.' It was primarily in order to remedy this state of affairs, which was unfavourable to the growth of English trade with the eastern Mediterranean, that certain merchants of London were incorporated in 1581 as the Turkey Company, receiving from Queen Elizabeth a patent extending for seven years. On its expiry in 1588 the patent was not renewed- in its original form, owing to a conflict of interests between the Turkey Company andthe Venice Company, which had been founded in 1583. In 1592, however, both Companies were amalgamated as the Levant Company, with a charter granted for twelve years. At the end of this period the Company received a permanent charter, which remained in force, with minor alterations, until surrendered to the Crown in 1825. 1 London, 1893 ; being No. Ixxxvii of the Hakluyt Society's publications. As we have seen, the earliest English archives preserved in Cyprus date only f...Read More