British diplomat and historian
Sir Paul Rycaut FRS (23 December 1629 – 16 November 1700) was an English diplomat, historian, and authority on the Ottoman Empire.
Life.
Rycaut's Huguenot father was held in the Tower of London, during the English Civil War, for his Cavalier sympathies, but the sequestration of his property was lifted.
Rycaut was born in Aylesford, Kent, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1650. In 1652, he was admitted to Gray's Inn. While studying at Alcalá de Henares, he learned Spanish and translated the first part of Baltasar Gracián's "The Critick". Rycaut was then employed as private secretary to Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He became British consul and factor at Smyrna (now İzmir).
From 1689 to 1700, he was Resident at Hamburg. He was active in frustrating the efforts of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies to raise capital in the city.
On 12 December 1666, Rycaut was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Knighthood was conferred on him in 1685. He died in Hamburg in November of 1700, aged 70, of a stroke.
Works.
His letters to William Blathwayt are held at Princeton University.
References.
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