'Precis Containing Information in regard to the First Connection of the Hon'ble East India Company with Turkish Arabia, as far as the Same Can Be Traced from the Records of the Bombay Government, together with the Names of the Several British Residents and Political Agents Who Have Been Stationed at Bagdad [Baghdad] and Bussorah [Basra] between A.D. 1646 and 1846, accompanied by Other Information' [‎93r] (189/226)

xvii ]
late our Judges, without the knowledge of their Ambassador, have con
demned, imprisoned, and taken presents from the English nation, which
is a great wrong done to them.
LVIIL
Also whereas in the Imperial capitulations it is ordered that the
t - t . customers shall not take any custom for
No customs upon money. , tt ,, i ,, -n t i
such gold and dollars as by the English
nation shall be brought in or carried out of our Imperial dominions, and
that the merchants are to give only 3 per cent, for the custom of
their goods and no more, the ^customers notwithstanding do pretend to
take custom for their chequeens and dollars and to take more custom
„ ... than their due for their raw silks, which
they buy and of the goods which they
land at Scanderoon to carry up to Aleppo ; they demand 6 per cent., which
unjust exactions have been heretofore rectified and redressed with an
express Hattisheriff, but being now again informed that the said
English merchants are as before wronged by reason that the customers
do value and estimate the goods of the English merchants more than
they are worth, and though the customers are to have but 3 per cent.,
yet on over-valuation of the goods they take from them 6 per cent., and
the servants of the custom house, under pretence of small duties and
expenses, wrongfully take great sums of money from them, and a greater
number of waiters being put aboard the English ships than theretofore
A greater number of guardians not to have been used, the charges thereof are
bj put aboard our ships than usual. a great expense to the merchants and
masters of ships that sustain it. To all which we being requested for
redress do command that when the customers do set great values upon
their goods the merchants offering to them according to the rate of 3 per
cent, in specie of the same goods, the customers shall not refuse, but
accept the same, and being desired by the English Ambassador that the
above specified abuses and injustice should be rectified, we do command
that, contrary to the Imperial capitulations, the English merchants be
neither in the foregoing particulars nor in any other manner troubled,
nor their privileges unjustly infringed.
The Ambassador of the King of Great Britain, Sir Heneage Finch
Knight, Earl of Winchelsea, Viscount Maidstone, Baron Fitzerherbert
of Eastwell, Lord of the Royal Manor of Wye, and Lieutenant of the
County of Kent and City of Canterbury, whose end may it terminate
with bliss, did arrive with his presents and with all sincerity and affec
tion, was accompanied with letters amply expressing in good friendship
and correspondence, and the above said Ambassador both presented the
capitulations that they might be renewed according to the canon, and
that some Articles of great consideration, which were before in the
capitulations, may be more punctually observed; the said Ambassador did
desire that they might be again renewed and more plainly expressed in
the Imperial capitulations; his request was graciously accepted, one of
which points is this :—
LIX.
That the gallies and other vessels of the Imperial fleet departing
the dominions of the Grand Signor and meeting on the sea with