Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/313

 conjunction with Gavin Hamilton [q. v.] he supplied Townley and other great English collectors with sculpture, coins, and gems. The restoration and renovation to which Jenkins subjected antiquities have lessened for posterity the reputation which he enjoyed in his own day, when Winckelmann and other archæologists acknowledged his authority. On the occupation of Rome by the French Jenkins lost all his property, and escaped to England. He died at Yarmouth in 1798.

 JENKINSON, ANTHONY (d. 1611), merchant, sea-captain, and traveller, when still a youth was sent, in 1546, into the Levant as training for a mercantile career. During the following years he seems to have visited most of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, Algiers, and Tunis, Spain and Italy, Greece, Turkey, Western Asia, and the Holy Land, as well as the principal islands, Sicily, Crete, and Cyprus. In 1553 he was at Aleppo, and wrote an account of the entry of Solyman the Great on 4 Nov. From Solyman he obtained a ‘safe-conduct or privilege,’ permitting him to trade in Turkish ports, ‘with his ship or ships or other vessels,’ without hindrance, and free of any extraordinary custom or toll. In 1555 he was admitted a member of the Mercers' Company, and in 1557 was appointed by the Muscovy Company captain-general of their fleet sailing for Russia, and their agent there for three years, at a fixed salary of 40l. per annum. They left Gravesend on 12 May, and passing along the then little-known coast of Norway, by the terrors of the Maelstrom, and round the North Cape, arrived at St. Nicholas, at the western mouth of the river Dwina, on 12 July. The ships were discharged, re-laden, and sailed again for England on 1 Aug., Jenkinson remaining behind. On the 3rd he went to Kholmogori, where the company had established their factory, and setting out from there by boat on the 15th, he went up the Dwina to Vologhda, which he reached on 20 Sept.; ‘all the way,’ he says, ‘I never came in house, but lodged in the wilderness by the river's side, and carried provisions for the way.’ On 1 Dec. 1557 he left Vologhda in a sledge, ‘as the manner is in winter,’ and arrived at Moscow on the 6th. On the 10th he was officially received by the tsar's secretary, and on the 25th, ‘the day of the Nativity,’ he was admitted to the presence of the tsar, Iwan the Terrible, himself. The tsar ‘with his own mouth’ called him by name, and at his invitation Jenkinson dined with him at six o'clock, by candle-light. Jenkinson ‘sat at a little table, directly before the emperor's face.’ On 4 Jan. he was accorded a like favour.

Jenkinson wrote interesting descriptions of Russian life and manners as he saw them during his stay at Moscow, which lasted till 23 April 1558, when he started on his journey southwards, furnished with letters from the tsar. He travelled entirely by water, down the Moscow river to Kolomna, and thence to Nijni Novgorod, where, after some delay, he joined the train of the governor of Astrakhan, going to take up his command. On 19 May they sailed from Novgorod, on the 29th came to Kazan, where they stayed till 13 June, and on 14 July arrived at Astrakhan, at a time of terrible famine and pestilence. On 6 Aug. Jenkinson and his little party took boat and passed into the Caspian, coasted along its northern shores to the extreme east, and after a month's difficult navigation landed near Mangishlak, long afterwards known as Fort Novo-Alexandrovsk, and thence, joining a caravan of one thousand camels, after a long and adventurous journey by way of Khiva, they arrived on 23 Dec. at Bokhara. Three days afterwards Jenkinson was brought before the king and presented the tsar's letters. The king received him favourably, and on several occasions discoursed with him familiarly of the power of the tsar and of the great Turk, and of the laws, customs, and religion of England. ‘But after all this great entertainment,’ adds Jenkinson, ‘before my departure he showed himself a very Tartar; for he went to the wars owing me money, and saw me not paid before his departure.’ The fault, however, seems to have been the ministers', for they received orders to pay, but failed to obey them.

After two months' stay at Bokhara there were rumours of an impending siege, and Jenkinson was advised to depart. He wished to go into Persia, but the disturbed state of the country rendered this impossible, and he was compelled to retrace his steps to the Caspian, which he reached on 23 April 1559, bringing with him six Tartar ambassadors and twenty-five Russians, whom he had rescued from slavery. After many delays and difficulties ingeniously overcome, he came to Astrakhan on 28 May, and finally to Moscow on 2 Sept. At Moscow he remained in frequent intercourse with the tsar, and dining several times in his presence, till 17 Feb. 1559–60, when he returned to Kholmogori. As soon as the navigation opened, he journeyed to England, where he was well received by the company.

In the following year he was sent out again, with instructions to make another