'Precis Containing Information in regard to the First Connection of the Hon'ble East India Company with Turkish Arabia, as far as the Same Can Be Traced from the Records of the Bombay Government, together with the Names of the Several British Residents and Political Agents Who Have Been Stationed at Bagdad [Baghdad] and Bussorah [Basra] between A.D. 1646 and 1846, accompanied by Other Information' [‎60r] (121/226)

WITH TURKISH ARABIA A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. —1646 TO 1846.
89
conscious the communication of this event will be highly agreeable to you, and that
you will participate in the satisfaction we feel in reflecting that the Government
of these countries, and the high station we now fill have not departed from the family
of Soliman Pacha, so that if you, our honored friend, upon the sad tidings of his
decease, laboured under the burthen of sorrow, we expect that when the present letter
arrives you will gather with the hand of alacrity the bright fruit of gladness from the
tree of hope. And the more so because in the same manner that the departed who
now rests in Paradise, was assiduous, to cultivate the friendship of the great man of
the renowned State of England, we shall in every manner uniformly endeavour to
tread in his footsteps, and in view we hope you will consider us as always anxious
to adopt those measures which may best contribute to strengthen and augment
the happy union of sentiments, and the reciprocal performance of friendly actions
which have so long been the object of each party. The wise have said friendship,
and love our hereditary. These sentiments and principles with which we are strongly
impressed, a,nd which we declare will ever guide our conduct with the illustrious
English nation, are well known to the very respectable Mr. Harford Jones who resides
a,t our Court, who loses no opportunity of promoting the mutual advantage of both
States, and who is intimately admitted to our confidence, He will we are certain
communicate with you more largely on these points, and amply bear witness to the
sincerity of our present possessions. Under such circumstances, the rules of true
friendship require that you, our honored friend, should consider the interests of the
both States as one and the same and know no difference between them, in which case
you will not deprive us of the pleasure of receiving your agreeable letters or the
satisfaction of executing such commands as you may have in these countries."
198. On the 16th January 1803 the Right Hon'ble the Earl of
Elgin, His Britannic Majest/s Ambassador at the Court of the Sublime
Porte, addressed a letter to Mr. Harford Jones, stating that the expe
rience His Lordship had had of the interruptions to which Mr. Jones'
residence at Bagdad was liable, and the intrigues to which he was
exposed, from not possessing the same sanction from the Turkish Govern
ment that every other accredited foreigner enjoyed within the Ottoman
Empire, had induced His Lordship to avail himself of the opportunity
which the recent appointment of a new Pacha to the Bagdad Pachalic
had afforded, as a favorable occasion lor establishing a right to the
establishment of a British Resident at Bagdad, and that His Lordship
had accordingly obtained from the Sultana "Burat" to that effect,
conveying to Mr. Jones, the then Resident " every privilege and protec
tion in the same form in which they are granted in all provinces of the
Empire. This "Burat" or "Imperial Diploma," as it is termed in the
original, was dated the 2nd November 1802; the only copy of this
document on the records of this Government is written in Italian, from
which 1 have had the following English translation prepared:—
" Translation of an Imperial Ottoman Diploma granted to Harford Jones, Esquire,
British Consul of Bagdad and the environs."
" At the request of Lord Elgin, English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, in a
memorandum given to me by him, to wit, that in consequence of the capitulations,
the English Minister having named Consuls at the Ports of Aleppo, Alexandria,
Tripoli of Syria, Algiers, Tripoli of Barbary, Tunis, Sio, Smyrna, Egypt, and other
parts requiring Custom Houses, and wishing shortly to change or replace them by
others, and having for the present assigned and established as Consul in the city of
Bagdad and its environs Harford Jones, Esquire, a British subject, and residing in the
said city of Bagdad, in order to protect the affairs of British merchants established
there, or of travellers, I have given him my Imperial Bur at in conformity with the
requisitions of the said capitulations, confirming and ordaining the said Harford Jones,
Esquire, as Consul in the said city of Bagdad; that in conformity with the said
capitulations the affairs of merchants and travellers under the protection of the