“An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.”

—  Henry Wotton

Reliquiae Wottonainae (1651). In a letter to Velserus, 1612, Wotton says, "This merry definition of an ambassador I had chanced to set down at my friend's, Mr. Christopher Fleckamore, in his Album".

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Henry Wotton 13
English ambassador 1568–1639

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