RICAUT, or RYCAUT, SIR PAUL, an English traveller and diplomatist of the time of whose birth we find no account. He studied at Cambridge, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1650; and in 1661 he was appointed secretary to the Earl of Winchester, who was sent ambas-
sador extraordinary to Turkey. During his continuance in that station he wrote The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, in three books, London, 1670; and he afterwards resided eleven years as consul at Smyrna, where at the command of Charles II., he composed The Present State of the Greek and Arminian Churches, 1678. On his return, Lord Clarendon being appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1685, made him his principal secretary for Leinster and Connaught. King James II. knighted him, and made him one of the privy council in Ireland, and judge of the Court of Admiralty. These appointments he held till the Revolution. He was employed by King William as resident at the Hanse Towns in Lower Saxony, where he continued for ten years; but being worn out with age and infirmities, he obtained leave to return in 1700, and died in London on the 16th December of the same year. Ricard continued Knolles's History of the Turks, 1680, and Platina's Lives of the Popes, 1685. There are likewise some other publications which bear his name.