Cornelius Haga
Cornelis Haga was a Dutch ambassador. He was the first ambassador of the Dutch Republic to the Ottoman Empire.
Early life
Cornelius Haga was born in Schiedam. His father was Dirk Lambrechtszoon, merchant and member of the town council of Schiedam, and organist of the church there. Haga was educated at the Latin school in Schiedam before he studied law at the University of Leiden.Career
He went into diplomatic service and became an envoy in Stockholm. After this he became the first diplomatic representative of the republic in Constantinople from 1612 to 1639. He was accompanied on his adventurous journey by Cornelis Pauw, Ernst Brinck, secretary, and Cornelis Sijms, both also sons of regents and Andries Suyderhoeff, who later replaced Brinck as secretary of the delegation, and Lambert Verhaer, who had been a goldsmith in Constantinople and was the only member of the group who had made the journey before.Haga laid the foundations of diplomatic relations and he erected numerous consular posts at the most important ports and trade-centra in the Ottoman Empire; Patras, Thessaloniki, Athens, Gallipoli, Smyrna, Aleppo, Sidon, Dairo, Tunis and Algiers.
Haga received the Capitulations of the [Ottoman Empire|capitulation] of the Ottoman Sultan, Ahmed I in 1612. This allowed the Dutch to trade with the Ottoman Empire under their own jurisdiction. The sultan also granted the Dutch several privileges, including exemption of certain taxes and limited autonomy within the empire.
In 1639, Haga returned to the Netherlands. In 1645 he became president of the High Council of Holland, Zeeland and West-Friesland, a function that he kept until his death in 1654.