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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 850: SURRENDER, OF THE CHARTER OF THE LEVANT COMPANY.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

SURRENDER, OF THE CHARTER OF THE LEVANT COMPANY.

Connected with the above changes was the surrender of the charter of the Levant Company. That company was established by royal charter in the reign of James the First, when considerable privileges were bestowed upon it. Thus they were allowed to appoint all the consuls in the seaports in the Levant; to levy duties on all English ships for the maintenance of their consuls; and to exercise a certain jurisdiction within the territories of the Ottoman Porte. These powers and trusts had been exercised by the servants of the company with general fidelity for two centuries; but, considering the state of the countries in which the company’s consuls resided, in apolitical point of view, it was now deemed expedient that the public servants of this country in Turkey should hold their appointments from the crown. A meeting of the company was called in consequence of a communication from the ministers; and Lord Grenville, the governor, having proposed the surrender of their charter, the company acceded to it; and an act of parliament was subsequently passed for carrying that surrender into effect.