Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/234

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. XL MAP, 20, i9ir>.

feastings, and on his arrival and departure <was honoured with the customary salvos of artillery. At this period Cyprus appears to have been colonized chiefly by merchants of the French Levant Company.

M. D'Arvieux had many hostile en- oounters with the English Consul of the district of Aleppo, Mr. Gamaliel Night- ingale disputes in which the English Factor Marine at Alexandretta, named Thomas Jenkins, was mixed up. M. D'Ar- vieux retired from Aleppo in 1685. The poor Consul got into trouble about the way in which young Frenchmen paraded the bazaars of Aleppo dressed up in women's -clothes at carnival time. How difficult to imagine such things possible in 1680 !

There is no mention in these ' Memoires ' of any English settlement in Cyprus at this period ; we must therefore suppose that, although an English Vice-Consul was ap- pointed at Larnaca from time to time during the seventeenth century, the English trade with Cyprus was comparatively insignificant.

In 1693 Van Bruyn, a Dutchman, visited Larnaca and found all the European mer- chants there to be Frenchmen, but an Englishman came to settle during his stay. M. Baldassar Sovran, French Consul, was acting for the English nation. Mr. Deleau, whose tombstone remains at Larnaca, was at this time just dead, and perhaps the newly arrived Englishman may have been Mr. Ion (or John) Ken, who must have died almost at the time of Van Bruyn' s visit.

The two Kens, relatives of the famous Bishop Ken, the Non juror, were doubtless brothers. Ion Ken, buried at Larnaca in 1693, was the son of Ion Ken, elder brother of the Bishop, and brother-in-law of Isaac Walton (the " Fisherman "). Ion Ken, sen., was also Treasurer of the East India Company (vide notices of this family in ' N. & Q.' for 1912. 11 S. vi. 145, 289, 373).

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Levant Company was immersed in troubles, not only with the Turks, who were constantly demanding " avanie " or " back- sheesh " under various pretexts, but also with interloping traders. The setting up of a factory of the Company at Larnaca seems to have been accompanied with difficulties occasioned by such interlopers. A rival society of Englishmen built a great house or khan, which was of such dimensions and importance that the natives protested it was meant for a fort. The representatives of the Levant Company in Larnaca were naturally indignant at their chartered 'rights

being infringed, and a great deal of trouble ensued. The Consul was accused of bribing the Governor of Cyprus and the people to create the uproar for the destruction of the rival establishment, and the Ambassador in Constantinople had much difficulty in settling the matter amongst the different intriguing parties. These troubles in Cyprus are referred to in John Heyman's ' Travels,' 1715. At this time the Consul and merchants in Larnaca occupied the position of bankers, without whom the natives would have found it difficult to carry on much trade.

One of the English merchants of the early eighteenth century in Cyprus has left a few records behind him. A certain Mr. Tread - way is referred to by several of the travellers of the period as a rich man who built the finest house in the Levant, at Larnaca, and many other houses on the road between Larnaca and Famagusta, eventually becom- ing a bankrupt in 1724. Mr. Treadway 's house in Larnaca still exists, and is now the property of Mr. C. D. Cobham, a former Commissioner of Larnaca. It possesses a very large room or hall, in which, it is said, a banquet was prepared for a large party of Mr. Treadway "s friends and creditors in 1732, at the very hour when that gentleman was decamping from Cyprus in a Venetian ship. It is not recorded whether the guests much enjoyed the feast when they discovered the absence of the host under such circum- stances. A letter in the Public Record Office referring to this matter is of interest in giving the names of a consul and merchants at Larnaca at that period :

Cyprus, 10 Jan., 1732/3.

To the Worshipfull Nevil Coxe Esqre., and Gentle- men of the British Nation off Aleppo.

GEKTLEMEN, The occasion off your Immediate Disturbance is to transmitt you minutes of an Assembly held 5th Inst. whereby You'll Please to observe Mr. Stiles Lupart is not Content Demitry Constantin Should act any longer as Druggerman & Cancellaria having given Mr. Treadway a Patent under a false Seal by which I apprehend its to say a forged one, for a Patent would be of no value or Service to Mr. Treadway iff not Signed by the Consul, besides he run away by a Venetian Ship under French Protection. So Consequently had no manner off one from the English

The Minutes are signed by the whole Court at <k Larnicha, 5 Jan., 1732/3.

WILLIAM PURXELL, Consul. GEORGE BARTON.

STILES LUPART. EDWARD LEE."

Another letter seems to have been dis- patched about the same date to express the Consul's private opinion in this matter. He says he would not

"lett a man serve the Nation near 8 years after so base an Action, this man having served the Nation