Many of the posts on Clay Lane are by well known writers such as William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. Others are by less well known authors who have something no less important to say.
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William Eton (fl. 1777-1811) was an English diplomat and adventurer, whose ‘Survey of the Turkish Empire’ (1798) became a best-seller but drew criticism for Eton’s strongly pro-Greek sympathies and desire to see Greece liberated (with Russian help) from the Ottoman Empire. Eton’s knowledge of both Imperial Russia and Ottoman Turkey was first hand, thanks to time served as British consul in St Petersburg and later in Constantinople. In 1800, Eton was appointed Superintendent of Quarantine in Malta, though from 1802 he took sick leave and lived in England. He became embroiled in a row over his criticisms of civil commissioner Hildebrand Oakes’s government in Malta, and though Oakes was relieved of his post in 1812 Eton had been dismissed the year before.
