Poorly paid interpreters leaked diplomatic secrets out of vanity and bribery

Evidence

Sir James Porter, an ambassador writing in the mid-eighteenth century, notes with regret that ambassadors are under a necessity of trusting other men to transmit their thoughts and sentiments to these unknown ministers; or, which is still worse, are obliged to have recourse to writing, and if the Turkish ministry happen to not like the subject, it will never produce an answer. Hence arises a great perplexity to zealous ministers, for if they entrust their secret to interpreters, who with large families live upon a small salary, and are used to Oriental luxury, the temptation of money from others is with difficulty withstood by them [Sir James is very considerate in putting it that way] and even exclusive of any considerations of gain, they are often excited by mere vanity to discover [meaning to reveal] the secret they are en­ trusted with in order to show their own importance. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 182

Categorization

• SEED: The 18th-century dragoman as a leak-prone info broker mirrors modern translator/interpreter power dynamics in negotiations and espionage — angle for an essay on who controls the words between powers.