The British embassy is by no means so young a member of this venerable diplomatic colony as our own, but its early traditions are of a special order. They are bound up with the history of the Levant Company. This was one of those great foreign trading associations of which the East India Company and the South Sea Company are, perhaps, more familiar examples. Hakluyt tells us that at least as early as 1511 British vessels were trading in the Levant, and that this trade became more active about 1575. In 1579 it was in some sort regularised by letters which were exchanged between Sultan Mourad III and Queen Elizabeth—“most wise governor of the causes and affairs of the people and family of Nazareth, cloud of most pleasant rain, and sweetest fountain of nobleness and virtue,” as her imperial correspondent addressed her. At a later date high-sounding epistles also passed between the Virgin Queen and her majesty Safieh—otherwise the Pure—favourite wife of the Grand Turk, who wrote: “I send your majesty so honourable and sweet a salutation of peace that all the flock of nightingales with their melody cannot attain to the like, much less this simple letter of mine.” The latter lady adds a touch of her own to her time, having been in reality a Venetian, of the house of Baffo. While on her way from Venice to Corfu, where her father was governor, she was kidnapped by Turkish corsairs and sent as a present to the young prince Mourad. So great became her influence over him that when he succeeded to the throne she had to be reckoned with in the politics of the Porte. Another royal correspondent of the Baffa, as the Balio called his countrywoman in his reports to the Council of Ten, was Catherine de’ Medici. In the meantime Queen Elizabeth had already issued, in 1581, letters patent to certain London merchants to trade in the Levant. In 1582 the first ambassador, Master William Harbone, or Hareborne, who was also chief factor of the Levant Company, betook himself and his credentials from London to Constantinople in the good ship Susan. The charter of “the Right Worshipful the Levant Company” was revised from time to time, but it was not definitely surrendered until 1825. And until 1821 the ambassador to the “Grand Signior,” as well as the consuls in the Levant, were nominated and paid by the company. It was under these not always satisfactory conditions that Mr. Wortley Montagu brought his lively Lady Mary to the court of Ahmed III in 1717. Lord Elgin, of the marbles, was the first ambassador appointed by the government. I have not succeeded in gaining very much light as to the quarters provided by the Levant Company for its distinguished employees. In the Rue de Pologne there is a funny little stone house, now fallen, I believe, to the light uses of a dancing-school, which was once the British consulate. The present embassy is a Victorian structure and known to be in a different place from the one where Lady Mary wrote her letters.