"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٠‎٠] (١٧٨٢/٣٤٣)

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ment. but no action appears to have been taken by them on this part
rvf their instructions. The project of a British " central station " ia the
Persian Gulf, which mig-ht ultimately supersede for all purposes, the East
India Company's settlements at Bushehr and even Masrah, wag revived
in connection with the expedition of 1819-20; and General SirW,
Grant Keir, at his departure from India, was instructed to report on the
question with especial reference to the islands of Qishm and Hanjam,
In the end, as Ras-al-Khaimah, where arrangements were at first made
for installing- the permanent British garrison, was found to
be unsuitable, the General recommended the transfer of the troops
to Qishm ; but he deprecated the immediate removal, which
had been suggested, of the British Political Residency in the Persian Gulf
to the same place. Advantage was accordingly taken of a claim asserted
by the Sultan of J Oman to possession of Qishm in his own right—and
not as a leaseholder under the Persian crown, which he was in the case
of Bandar Abbas, to obtain from him written permission to occupy
that island; and in July iSiiO the British detachment left at Ras-al-
Khaimah was transferred to Qishm town. The new station, however,
pio\ed intolerably hot and unhealthy ; and, after Dairistan and Salagh
on the south coast of the island had been tried and found unsuitable,
the garrison, early in 1822, was established at Basidu.
The occupation of Qishm provoked, as seems to have been foreseen,
extieme resentment on the part of the Persian Government who absolutely
denied the title of the Sultan of "'Oman to independent sovereignty over
Qishra, and who even, by way of rejoinder, claimed the Sultanas domi"
nions in Arabia as an appendage of Persia. Dr. J ukes, who was sent
to Shlraz in the summer of 1821 to explain matters, seems to have
succeeded in reconciling the Persian Governor of Fars to the accomplished
fact of the British occupation of Qishm; but no argument which the
British representative at Tehran could adduce had any effect on the
mind of the Shah or his ministers ; and they continued to demand, as
they had done from the first, the withdrawal of the British detachment.
Eventually the authorities in India arrived at the conclusion that it
would be better to evacuate the island than to be constantly at issue
a ith Persia in regard to it; but a sudden rupture of relations between
Persian monarch and the British Charge d^Alfaires at Tehran, which
r^d in the spring of 1822, made it inexpedient to appear to comply
he wishes of the Persian Government until the end of that year or
-ginning of 1823. Then at length the Qishm detachment, which
y sen ed no useful purpose, was removed to India.