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disturbed, and trade suspended. The farms were left untilled, many houses were abandoned, and the insurgents began to force even old servants of the government to join their band. They appeared openly in Larnaca, and asked for arms, powder and warlike stores, applying personally to Europeans, and even at the consular houses. On the other hand the government at Nicosia kept threatening all who helped Khalil Agha and his followers. The leading Turks in Larnaca, merchants and others, together with the Digdaban or Commissioner, the Customs officer and Sirdar conceived the notion of arranging through the consuls of the Christian princes a truce between the government and the rebels, upon terms which would satisfy both. They approached the French consul, who excused him-self on the ground that the King, his master, forbade him to interfere in matters affecting the local government which had no relation with his own duties. They passed on to Mr Timothy Turner, British consul and Tuscan vice-consul, who was always ready to help everyone, but he declined this mission unless he had the concurrence and help of the consuls of France and Venice. They refused to interfere, and again Mr Turner was entreated to take upon himself alone the negotiation. He firmly declined, and bowed the Turkish magnates out of his room, saying that except in concert with his colleagues he could not possibly intervene. The Turks, who knew of how much weight Mr Turner's mediation would be, came back to him and warned him that he would be the cause of greater misfortunes which might yet befal the island, and that the people would always reproach him as the author of their disasters. The consul, thus hard pressed, tried to see how tranquillity might be restored, at least until some efficient succour arrived from without. From the general talk of the malcontents he gathered that their demands would be comprised in the four following articles : xx] Insurrection of 1764-6 101

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