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duced themto the Turkish ambassador in London, Yussuf Aguiah Effendi. Morritt report ed :

“The Ambassador asked Mr. Frederiek isorth if we as Englishmen were not very well acquainted with the art of fortification, as hę woidd give us letters to his own brother, the Grand Master of the Ordnance in Turkey, whom he hoped we should enrich wifh some yery yaluable secrets about European tacties. Mr. North represented us as great engineers, and says that they know so little of the matter that we may keep up our character with ease out of an old German almanac on fortified towns, so do not be surprised if you hear of General Stockdale and me fortifying the Dardanelles.”¹

Wilbraham did not make up his mind to accompany Morritt to Constantinople until their nieeting in Yienna. He had intended going to Kussia, but his brother’s report on the State of insurreetion in PoIan,d and Morritfs offer caused him to postpone the idea.¹² He wrote to his mother that he had availed hiniself of “the Carte Blanche so kindly allowed me” and had determined “to accompany Morritt and Stockdale to Turkey & by that means to gratify myself with a sight of Constantinople which had always been my great object.”¹³

In Vienna Morritt engaged an artist, whom he intended to accompany him on his projected tonr of the ancient Greek sites, taking sketches of the ruins. In his letters he fails to name his “draughtsman”, saying only that he was a native of Yienna and that in order to obtain passports for him, he had been “obliged to be surety in two hundred florins that he should return iń two years.” Morritt wrote that “our party consists of Wilbraham, ounelyes, a draughtsman, and two servants.”¹⁴ Tliey set off from Yienna on 21 June 1704. Stockdale reeorded the details in. his diary : “Being stopped most of the day at Yienna for want of passports of the Seryants & Painter we set off at 1/2 past ten at night in a yiolent storm of thunder & lightping — M [Morritt] & I in a smali

1

Marindin, op. cii., pf. 4, The Tnrks were serfous in tlieir bid to attract British sup-por£ for their military reforms. See: Trevor J. Hopc, George Frcderick Kochler, Sir James Bland Burges et les relations anglo-turques, 1701    03 “Revuę Roumaine d*Histoire" (1794) vol.

13, no. 1, pp. 95 — 115.

¹³ It may be noted that the Wilbraham brothers were friendly with George Canning (1770—1827), who llke them. was a student at Christ Church, Oxford. Edward Bootle had evidently set off on his Enropean tour ahead of his brother, Jor Canning sent a letter with Raudle Wilbraham to inform Edward of Cannings decision to enter Parliament as \I.P. for Newtown nnder the banner of William Pitt. “Lct me have your prayers if cver you pray in a Greek Church'* wrote Canning, It was an apposite comment for one who, as British foreign secretary and briefly primc minister, was to play a sjgniflcant role In the events surrounding the Greek struggle for independence in the 1820's. See; George Cannmgr to Edward Bootle, Christ Church. Oxford 10 Decembcr 1703. The Canning Papers, the British Musenm, M.B. Add. MSS. 4G, 841. fols. 13-14. (Edward Bootle-Wilbraham (1771-1853) had adopted the sumame Bootle with his family’s acąnisition of the Lathom estate in Lancashire, a fact which caused some confusion even among his eon tern p ora r i es. He followed Canning into the House of Commons and pursued a political career, being created the first Baron Skelraersdnle in 1828)..

¹³    Handle Wilbraham to Mrs. Wilbraham Bootle, Plenna, 28 May 1794, The Baker Wilbraham Papers, Rode Hall, Cheshire.

¹⁴    Marindin, op. cit., pp. 42 and 45.