This edict has given rise to the still numerous Levantine families to be found in the Turkish Empire, families bearing English, French, and Italian names, and tracing their origin to those nations, but practically absorbed in the Ottoman Empire. It was a great blow to many artisans and merchants who had married and settled in the Levant. No less than forty French watchmakers, who had married Greek wives and settled in Galata, were obliged to become Turkish subjects in spite of the remonstrances of the French ambassador, and the case of Mr. Pentloe settled the question with regard to the English. He had married a Greek lady, and on his death left a will appointing two English merchants as his executors, obliging them to realise his property, and send his widow and her two children to England. Accordingly, the executors proceeded to carry out his wishes, but the Turkish Government seized Mrs. Pentloe and her children on embarkation, and threw the two executors into prison, from which they did not emerge for some considerable period; all Mr. Pentloe’s money was confiscated, and our ambassador could get no redress. This iniquitous _avania_ was not repealed for a hundred years afterwards, and may be taken as the origin of most of the so-called Levantine families, great numbers of which are to be found in Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonika, and other trade centres in the Turkish Empire. The progress of the Levant Company was steady, and prosperity attended their commerce. Notwithstanding, in 1681 we find the Turkey merchants petitioning Parliament against the East India Company, and begging for permission to have “exercise of trade in the Red Sea, and all other dominions of the Grand Signior, and to forbid the East India Company to import raw or wrought silks”; and further stating that as their freights were “raw silks, gaules, grograms, yarn, cotton, etc., and as they, not being a joint-stock Company, did not export much gold”, that the East India Company ought to be restricted from importing such things as they considered they only had the monopoly of. To this petition the East India Company drew up an exhaustive reply, and Parliament set the petition on one side. For the first three decades of the last century the prosperity of the Levant Company may be said to have been at its height. In the years 1716 and 1717 they exported to Turkey “43,000 cloths, and a very great quantity of lead, tin, sugar, etc.” In 1718, for the greater protection of merchants, “general ships”, which sailed together in large squadrons, were appointed, and the manufacturers had nothing to do but to convey their goods to the wharves, consign them to the shipowners, and pay the freight. These general ships, as they were called, used to leave England about July 1st, so as to have good weather in the open seas, and reach Turkey about the right time for the winter markets; then they returned home with raw silks, mohair, and other products of the East.