ABSTRACT
English absorption in the all-sea route to India militated against the vigorous maintenance of interests in the Levant, and for the greater part of two centuries Englishmen were content to trade under the Capitulations issued in 1604, which conceded to the English most of the privileges which had been granted to the French in 1535. In 1698 one Henry Tistew, who had formerly been English Consul at Tripoli in Syria, passed through Egypt and made his way down the Red Sea and thence to Surat with the idea of developing a trade route through Egypt and the Red Sea. French and English objectives in the eastern Mediterranean were far from being the same, although each suspected the other of having identical designs. The consular office once maintained in Egypt by the English Government had terminated when the English trade had deserted that country for other regions.
