To avoid similar complications, the Levant Company instructed the Ambassadors: “Many Evils have ensued upon the marriage of Englishmen with the Subjects of the Grand Signor. We therefore pray your Lordship to discourage and discountenance that practice, it being prejudiciall to themselves as well as to the publique” [see Instructions to Chandos, Trumbull, Hussey, Pagett, Sutton—Register, S.P. Levant Company, 145]. But the practice continued. In 1758 the Grand Vizir Raghib Pasha re-opened the whole question by issuing an ordinance which forbade Franks to marry the daughters of rayahs or to acquire real estate, and once more the authorities at Galata were commanded to send in a list of all Franks who were in the one or the other category [Hammer, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, vol. xvi. p. 12]. But still the practice went on, and in the end the Turks, whatever they may have held in theory, acquiesced in our view that the descendants of Frank fathers, no matter how remote, did not become Ottoman subjects. Hence the so-called Levantine families settled at Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, and other trade centres in the Near East; forming ex-territorial colonies the members of which, amenable to their own laws, administered by their own magistrates, and subject only to the jurisdiction, within certain limits, of their own Governments, preserved their respective nationalities and their civil and political rights, just as if they lived in the countries of their origin. This régime, unique in modern Europe, though common in antiquity, endured unchallenged down to the Turkish Revolution of 1908.
Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681
Explore more books like this:
About This Book
A detailed historical account of Sir John Finch's years as English ambassador in Constantinople between 1674 and 1681, reconstructed from original dispatches, letters, and contemporary memoirs. The narrative combines transcribed correspondence, reports from other English residents and foreign envoys, and archival research to depict Ottoman administration, court politics, commercial interactions, and the daily challenges faced by diplomats and merchants. Episodic chapters juxtapose official negotiations, personal observations, and procedural details, often reproducing the language and spelling of seventeenth-century documents to convey immediacy. The work balances documentary evidence with contextual commentary to illuminate the practicalities of seventeenth-century Anglo‑Ottoman relations.