MY DEAR FRIEND,

Smyrna is the only ancient town of Asia Minor, that continues to thrive. It flourished many centuries before Christ, but was almost destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Mark Anthony, and has never since recovered its former splendour. For although its advantageous situation for trade soon drew new inhabitants, yet, to lessen the effect of a similar catastrophe, the houses are all very low. The streets are in general dirty, narrow, and ill-paved, for the natives never study regularity in the scite of their buildings, and the Europeans, crowding to the water side, found no room to spare for ornament.

The French have the most numerous factory. The English are next in number of houses, but the Dutch exceed us in shipping. The Venetian and Ragusee vessels are very numerous, but they are seldom more than carriers.

The great advantage England derives from the trade to this country is, that the commodities we bring here are home-wrought, whilst the silk, cotton, and mohair, with which we are repaid, are raw articles, that are afterwards manufactured by ourselves, find work for our people, and are then exported to different parts of the world, and some of them even brought back here.

Besides silk and cotton, we take fruit and drugs, some of which are also re-exported; but I am sorry to find, that though our Levant trade is more flourishing than it has been for many years past, yet its rise is considerably checked by our own laws, and by the want of a regular Lazaretto in England.

If there is the least suspicion of the plague being at Smyrna, no vessel, even of our own nation, is permitted to discharge her cargo in Britain, previous to her having performed a quarantine in some other part of Europe; for our Lazarettos do not admit vessels from infected ports. But since our manufactories must be supplied with silk and cotton, our merchants are obliged to employ the Dutch, who land their goods in a Lazaretto in Holland, and after a short quarantine performed there, send them over to us. Thus do we suffer foreigners to deprive our seamen of employment, and our country of its just profits.

The cause that produces this prejudice to our Levant Company, is our dread of the plague. But are we more likely to be infected by this distemper than the Dutch? Or is England less able than Holland to set apart a small place for a regular Lazaretto? There are innumerable spots in our island which might be inclosed for this purpose, where goods from infected places might be properly aired, and afterwards introduced with more safety by our own subjects, than we at present receive them from the Dutch.

A person who has not been in the Levant, cannot conceive the inconvenience and distress arising to our nation, from this want of a Lazaretto. The enterprising spirit of the English leads them every where in search of employment. A vessel arrives at Smyrna--she gets a cargo, and the last day of her loading perhaps the plague appears on shore. What is she to do? She cannot sail for England--she must either submit to a ruinous loss, unload immediately, and fly to another port in quest of a freight, or go to one of the Lazarettos of Italy, France, or Malta, there perform a quarantine, land and reship her cargo; and after having, to the prejudice of the nation, laid out a considerable sum in a foreign port, she arrives at Stangate Creek; where, though the ship perhaps is not long detained, the cargo is put into one of the hulks, and aired with greater care and length of time, than the cotton has been which we receive without any apprehension from Holland.^[3]

That precautions are necessary nobody will deny; but why should we shackle our own people more than the Dutch? Or why should we be more afraid of allowing goods from an infected place to be landed in one of the many waste spots of Kent, Essex, Devonshire, or Cornwall, than foreigners are of receiving them at the very gates of their capital cities. I shall write you a long letter on this subject, when I have gained more experience in the nature of the plague, which I can already assure you is by no means so dangerous a distemper as Europeans imagine it.

The factory have great hopes that the generous Philanthrope, who lately visited Asia, will interest himself in their favour. This amiable patriot knows that

the navy is the bulwark of Britain, and that whatever tends to decrease the number of our seamen, tends to diminish the strength of our country; a truth so interesting to an Englishman, that I hope to God the accounts I hear of a most alarming decrease in our Greenlandmen are much exaggerated. A proper Lazaretto in England, by increasing our shipping in the Levant, would afford a sustenance to many of those invaluable subjects, whom a perhaps too rigid public oeconomy has bereft of bread.

There are many inconveniencies attending a correspondence between this country and Europe. The post sets out and arrives but twice a month. It goes through Constantinople and Vienna, and unless letters to and from England are taken up, and paid for at each of those places, they will never reach their destination. The want of a more regular communication must be sensibly felt in a place of so much trade.

We found near one hundred sail of merchantmen in the bay, every one of whom saluted us; for, to raise the European Powers in the eyes of the Turks, it is the custom at Smyrna to salute every man of war that enters the port. The same ceremony was performed on our going on shore the next day; and, as soon as we landed at Mr. Hayes', we were waited upon by the Consuls and Factories of the different nations, who have given us the most flattering reception. Scarce an evening passes without a ball or a concert, or some other party, for our amusement: but I am much surprised at the excessive dread in which the Christians live of their fellow subjects, the Mahometans. They dwell in separate districts, and are as fearful of going promiscuously among them, as into a den of wild beasts. The Turks have, indeed, a lordly, imperious air, which I suppose they acquire from the abject manner of the Greeks, who, being a conquered people, are always suspected of rebellious intentions, and almost extirpated on the least appearance of an insurrection; which obliges them to crouch so much to the conquerors, that they imagine all other Christians equally dastardly, and hold us in the same light as we do the Jews--a mean, money-making, unbelieving sect: but I am convinced, that if we went more among them, we should hear of fewer insults. I was so confident of this, that, without mentioning my intentions, I set out, and, after walking round the Turkish town, struck down through its very center, without meeting any interruption, except from one man, who, pointing at me, called out Bah! and two or three boys, who threw stones, but who were immediately called in by their father. I doubt whether a foreigner, in a strange dress, would pass through London with so little molestation.

Nevertheless, like the Jews in England, there have been instances here of the Christians being most inhumanly massacred; but this has never happened but after some signal disaster to the Turks, to which they supposed they had contributed; such as the destruction of their fleet in the ChisemÉ, which they knew the Russians could not have effected without the assistance of other powers; and the rabble make very little distinction of nations, confounding all Europeans together, under the appellation of Franks.

The poor Greeks complain much of their cruelty and oppression; but, in points of honour, our merchants tell me no people are stricter than the Turks. In other respects, the reports they give of their laws and customs, vary so much, that it is impossible for a stranger, as I am, and ignorant of the language of the country, to send you a more perfect account.