In the ad hoc diplomacy period, agents or envoys were sent to foreign states for different purposes. They were assigned by the sultan for signing peace treaties or trade agreements, peace proposals, carrying out peace negotiations or mediating between two states, negotiating the clauses of treaties, establishing or consolidating friendly relations, collecting debts of Ottomans, learning the opinions and policies of the states about the empire, declaring the change of throne, giving presents of the sultan, delivering letters from the sultan, declaring an Ottoman victory, congratulating a new monarch on behalf of the sultan, joining coronations of European monarchs, inviting European monarchs to certain ceremonies and claiming taxes.