| This dissertation examines the English who went to the Levant. Specifically, it analyzes the merchants, factors, ambassadors, chaplains, and embassy staff members who traveled to the Near East for either bureaucratic, commercial, or scholastic motivations. During their time abroad, these men amassed a wealth of knowledge and pecuniary resources, simultaneously furthering the countless interests forced upon them by the Levant Company and/or the English government. Thus, this dissertation asserts that the Ottoman Empire acted as a training ground for English emissaries, providing those who were abroad with the means of returning home to better positions of political, commercial, and/or diplomatic power. It further emphasizes that the Levant Company was yet another facet of the State, a formalized collective of mercantile agents acting on the behalf of the Stuart regime simultaneous to the mundane pursuit of trade. |
