Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet ( – 21 July 1812) was a British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Porte), orientalist and numismatist. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for the rotten borough of Milborne Port in Somerset between 1796 and 1802. Biography Early life and family He was the third and youngest son of George Ainslie, Esq., from a Lasswade family, who married Jane, daughter of Sir Philip Anstruther of Anstrutherfield, and died in 1773. The issue of the marriage of George Ainslie was a family of eight children, and included five daughters, four of whom were married and established in France. The elder brothers of Ainslie were Sir Philip Ainslie, knight, who was born in 1728, and died on 19 June 1802; and George Ainslie, a general in the army, colonel of the 13th regiment of foot, and lieutenant-governor of the Scilly Islands, who died on 1804 and was buried in Highgate cemetery. Ainslie, who was born about 1730, is described as having resided in the earlier part of his life at Bordeaux, where his father had been for some time settled as a merchant. He is said to have returned to Scotland in 1727, and to have purchased the estate of Pilton, in the county of Midlothian. Ambassador to Turkey Ainslie is first noticed in the London Gazette on 20 September 1775: "The king has been pleased to appoint Robert Ainslie, Esq., to be his majesty's ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, in the room of John Murray, Esq., deceased; and his majesty was pleased this day to confer upon him the honour of knighthood, upon which occasion he had the honour to kiss his majesty's hand." He left England in May 1776 for Constantinople, where he arrived on 2 October following. Ainslie had the reputation while in Turkey of being a great favourite and boon companion of the Sultan Abdul Hamid I. He returned to England in 1791. He was given leave to return home on 22 September 1793 and left Turkey sometime in 1794. MP On 8 September 1796, Ainslie received a grant of a pension of £1,000 on the civil list, to be held 'during the joint lives of his majesty and himself'; and was elected a member of the parliament which met on the 27th of the same month, with Lord Paget as his colleague, for the close borough of Milborne Port, Somerset.