4. John Chamberlain wrote on Feb. 22, 1617: "you might thincke her and her worshipfull husband to be somebody, yf you do not know that the poore companie of Virginia out of theyre povertie are faine to allow her fowre pound a weeke for her maintenance" (McClure, ed., Letters of Chamberlain II, 57; and see p. 121n, above). In contrast, in 1611 Robert Shirley, acting as special envoy from Shah Abbas the Great of Iran to London, received from the Levant Company £4 a day for food, plus £20 a month for house rent (Dictionary of National Biography s.v. Shirley, Robert).Back