Levant.- Case (The) of the Governor and Company of Merchants of England Trading to the Levant Seas, 4pp., [?1753] bound with Historical View (An) of the Conduct and Proceedings of the Turky Company,12pp., [1753] and Bill (A) for Enlarging and Regulating the Trade into the Levant Seas, 8pp., issue with "prenticeships" to p.1., [1740], together 3 works in 1 vol., all with drop-head titles to first leaves and docket titles to last, the second with contemporary manuscript note "2d Reading of the Turkey Bill is Tuesday the 13.th March", modern cloth, folio, n.p.

⁂ In the first item the Levant (or Turkey) Company is responding to the proposed legislation then before Parliament and which was enacted in 1754 as An Act for enlarging and regulating the trade into the Levant seas. The Levant Company "had never been an exclusive or oppressive monopoly such as the East India or Greenland Company was, but on the contrary was based on the assertion of the inestimable liberty of trade. Every merchant who could pay the required entrance fee was of right admitted a member, and was then entitled to trade on his own account". [Palgrave III, p.595]. The 1754 Act opened up the trade even further, all English merchants paying £20 for admission to its rights and privileges.