In addition, Sir John had an English Secretary, a Mr. William Carpenter, of whom little more than the name is known to us; and, besides, he was assisted by the Levant Company’s Cancellier, an officer whose business it was to draw up all legal documents and to register them in the Embassy Cancellaria. This office was at the time filled by Mr. Thomas Coke, a man small in stature, but, it would seem, of great ability and amiability.[59] Three other Englishmen with whom business brought Sir John into frequent contact were personages sufficiently notable in themselves, and they play sufficiently prominent parts in our story to deserve special notice. [Illustration: Paul Rycaut Esq. late Consul of Smyrna; Fellow of the Royall Societie. From the Engraving by R. White after the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely. _To face p. 53._] At Smyrna he had met our distinguished Consul, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Paul Rycaut, a graduate of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an author of European reputation. As his name implies, Rycaut was of foreign extraction--the son of a wealthy banker of Brabant who, having settled in England under James I. and ruined himself for Charles I., died leaving a large family all but destitute. It fell to the lot of Paul to provide by his labours for most of these victims of Loyalty. After six arduous years at the Constantinople Embassy, as Secretary to Lord Winchilsea--who found him “so modest, discreet, able, temperate and faithfull” that he transferred him from the steward’s table to his own and treated him “more like a friend than a servant”[60]--he obtained from the Levant Company the Consulate of Smyrna. Important and lucrative as this post was, it was hardly one of those that give tranquillity to an ambitious heart or enjoyment to a cultivated mind. While performing its duties with exemplary energy and conscientiousness, Rycaut looked upon it as a stepping-stone to higher things. In 1666, during a long visit home on public business, he had brought himself to the notice of the Court by his work on _The Present State of the Ottoman Empire_--a book which, running into many editions and translated into French, Italian, German, and Polish, made the author famous,[61] without, however, making him what he wished to be. Lord Arlington testified to Rycaut’s “good parts” and other good qualities,[62] but did nothing for him. We may congratulate ourselves that his promotion was postponed so long; to that circumstance we are indebted for much valuable information. But Rycaut had small cause to feel pleased. The Smyrna Consulate cramped him like a prison cell. His discontent is written as plain as large print can make it in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to the _History of the Turkish Empire_ which he published a few years later: “Ever since the time of Your Majesties happy Restauration,” he grumbles, “my Lot hath fallen to live and act within the Dominions of the Turk.” The same feeling is not less