time complain of this matter, and how this business is despatched
certify us at our most famous porch. Dated in the city of
Constantinople, in the nine hundred and ninety-second year of Mahomet,
and in the end of the month of October, and the year of Jesus 1584.


A LETTER OF MASTER WILLIAM HAREBROWNE, THE ENGLISH AMBASSADOR, LEDGER
IN CONSTANTINOPLE, TO THE PASHA ROMADAN, THE BEGLERBEG OF TRIPOLIS, IN
BARBARY, FOR THE RESTORING OF AN ENGLISH SHIP, CALLED THE JESUS, WITH
GOODS AND MEN DETAINED AS SLAVES, 1585.

Right Honourable Lord, it hath been signified unto us by divers
letters, what hath fallen out concerning a certain ship of ours, called
the Jesus, into which, for the help of Richard Skegs, one of our
merchants in the same, now deceased, there was admitted a certain
Frenchman, called Romaine Sonnings, which for his ill behaviour,
according to his deserts, seeking to carry away with him another
Frenchman, which was indebted to certain of your people, without paying
his creditors, was hanged by sentence of justice, together with Andrew
Dier, the master of the said ship, who, simply and without fraud,
giving credit to the said Frenchman, without any knowledge of this evil
fact, did not return when he was commanded by your honourable lordship.
The death of the said lewd Frenchman we approve as a thing well done,
but contrariwise, whereas your lordship hath confiscated the said ship,
with the goods therein, and hath made slaves of the mariners, as a
thing altogether contrary to the privileges of the Grand Signior,
granted four years since, and confirmed by us, on the behalf of the
most excellent the Queen's Majesty of England, our mistress, and
altogether contrary to the league of the said Grand Signior, who, being
fully informed of the aforesaid cause, hath granted unto us his royal