The origins of the Levant Company lay in the Italian trade with Constantinople, and the wars against the Turk in Hungary, although a parallel was routed to Morocco and the Barbary Coast on a similar trade winds as early as 1413. The collapse of the Venetian empire, high tariffs, the ousting of the Genoese from Scio (Chios) had left a vacuum that was filled by a few intrepid adventurers in their own cog vessels with endeavour to reopen trade with the East on their own accounts. Following a decline in trade with the Levant over a number of decades, several London merchants petitioned Queen Elizabeth I in 1580 for a charter to guarantee exclusivity when trading in that region. In 1580 a treaty was signed between England and the Ottoman Empire, giving English merchants trading rights similar to those enjoyed by French merchants. In 1582 William Harborne, an English merchant who had carried out most of the treaty negotiations in Constantinople to French protestations, made himself permanent envoy. But by 1586 Harborne was appointed 'Her Majesty's ambassador' to the Ottoman Empire, with all his expenses (including gifts given to the Sultan and his court) to be paid by the Levant Company. When the charters of both the Venice Company and the Turkey Company expired, both companies were merged into the Levant Company in 1592 after Queen Elizabeth I approved its charter as part of her diplomacy with the Ottoman Empire.