BritiJ/j Trade with Turiey. 2J<j 



under the appellation of confulftiip or otherwife ; no fee is 

 taken at any ambaffador's, conful's, or chancellor's office, 

 for documents neceffary for the difpatch of trade; no prefents 

 are made by confuls to paflias or other officers ; no avania is 

 fubmitted to. 



A conful at Smyrna only is neceffary* Vice-confuls in 

 the other ports would anfwer every purpofe for the protection 

 of trade; and there would be found merchants enow, who 

 would be glad of the office without pay, for the honour of it, 

 which in Turkey is confiderable. There is at this day no 

 ncceffity for confuls living in fuch great ftale as they did a 

 few years ago. The foreign minifters at Conftantinople have 

 very confiderably retrenched their expences. 



The power of an ambaffador and of a conful in Turkey is 

 very great; it extends even to life and death. By one of the 

 articles of the capitulations (or treaty with the porte) it is 

 ftipulated, that in all criminal cafes wherein fubjefts of the 

 porte are not concerned, ambafladors or confuls (hall punifh 

 the criminal according to the laws of their country. In the 

 Dutch capitulations this is expreffed ftill ftronger. As crimes 

 committed in a ftate are crimes immediately againft that 

 ftate, the cognizance of them belongs to it alone. The fultan 

 delegates his power to the ambafladors and confuls ; and if 

 in punifhing the criminal they exceed the rule prefcribed by 

 the laws of their own country, they are only anfwerable for 

 their conduct to the fultan; but the fultan takes no cogni- 

 zance of it, therefore they are without control, and their 

 power is defpotic. It is indeed true, that they generally 

 fend fuch offenders home to their country; there have, how- 

 ever, with other nations, been examples where an European 

 has killed a fubject of the porte, and juftice being demanded 

 the ambafl'ador or conful has put the criminal to deat>" 

 Should it happen that an Engliihman killed a Turk, it w 1 

 certainly be better that the ambaffador or conful fhoul cau e 

 him to be hanged by his own people, than that P ffi° ul(i 

 deliver him up to the Turks, for juftice beinfr jemanded, 



Tz 



there 



