Note 313 — Chapter XIV

Here are the two despatches, dated the same day and sent by different channels:—“Pera, November 16, 1707.—Monseigneur—The Grand Vizier, desiring that Avedick, the Patriarch of the schismatic Armenians, who is said to have gone into Christian lands, should return to Constantinople, sends two Armenians to Malta, named Hazadour, son of Margos, and Donabit, son of Yartan, in order to search for the said Patriarch Avedick, and to bring him back to Constantinople, two Turks, formerly at Malta, having assured the Grand Vizier that they had seen him there two months and a half ago. As I have nothing so much at heart as to please the Grand Vizier, I have given passports to the Armenians and a letter of recommendation for M. le Bailli de Tincourt, to the end that they may have every sort of liberty to seek and bring here the said Patriarch Avedick, and return to Constantinople when it shall seem good to them, without suffering any difficulty or impediment; but that on the contrary every kind of assistance should be given to them. As, however, the Turks, who were slaves at Malta, asserted that the said Patriarch Avedick was going on to Rome, I beg your Eminence very humbly to render every kind of assistance to the Armenians, to facilitate their search for the Patriarch Avedick, and give them the means of bringing him back to Constantinople in all security.”

Here is now the secret despatch:—“Pera, November 16, 1707.—Monseigneur—As the two Turks have said that Avedick was going to Rome, I have, at the request of the Grand Vizier, given the Armenians a letter of recommendation to your Eminence. You can judge of the character of these persons. It is, however, important that they should not be ill-treated, and, after having sought Avedick, that they should be permitted to return to Constantinople. But all their proceedings ought to be watched in such a way that they can neither complain of this course nor enter on their return into new plots.”—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.