io. This closed the ceremony of entry.

The English Ambassador Extraordinary enjoyed certain privileges which
were established on the precedent of the embassy of Lord Falconberg,
Cromwell's son-in-law. Among these privileges was the right to lodging
and maintenance at the cost of the Republic, a right which the
ambassador usually compounded for the sum of five or six hundred ducats;
a box at each theatre in Venice was placed at his disposal, and when he
took his _conge_ the Senate voted him a gold chain and medal of the
value of two thousand scudi. The ambassadors ordinary enjoyed certain
exemptions from customs dues. These exemptions were frequently abused,
and were the cause of constant friction between the Government and the
representatives of the Powers. In the year 1763 Mr. John Murray's
Istrian wine was seized, and he only recovered it after expressing
himself _ben mortificato_. Mr. Murray was constantly in trouble on this
subject. The year before he had addressed an indignant letter to the
Government because 'a certain official of the Custom House had accused
him of allowing his servants to sell wine and flour at the door of the
Residency. It is but a poor satisfaction after so long a period of
suspicion to know that that official is bankrupt and no proof of the
accusation is forthcoming.' But by far the most curious episode of this
nature was that which befell Tom Killigrew, the poet, grandfather of the
Mrs. Anne Killigrew of Dryden's famous ode and a friend of Pepys, who
recals him as 'a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the
King, who told us many merry stories,' this, perhaps, among the number.
Killigrew was sent to represent Charles II. at Venice in 1649, just
after the execution of Charles I., and while his son was _a ramingo_, or
knocking about, as the Venetian ambassador politely puts it. Killigrew
was received in the usual way on February 10, 1650, and made his address
'in lingua cattiva,' as the report affirms. But the Republic soon tired
of its alliance with an exiled king, and resolved to dismiss Killigrew
as soon as possible. Killigrew was poor, and his master had little or
nothing to give him, so he hit upon the expedient of keeping a butcher's
shop, where he could sell meat, cheaper than any one else in Venice, by
availing himself of his exemptions from octroi. The Senate resolved to
fasten upon this illicit traffic as a pretext for dismissing Killigrew;
and on the 22d of June, 1652,