Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎138r] (276/879)

Bennett 5
status in the Gulf, and that at a very early
period in the history of the English connection
with these waters there may be found the
germ of the larger responsibility and influence
which this country was afterwards to assume
there. The Persians, who, Sir John Malcolm
tells us, at all periods of their history abhorred
and dreaded the sea, were glad to secure an
undertaking from the Company at the time of
the expulsion of the Portuguese from Ormuz,
to maintain two ships in the Gulf to protect
trade, and six years later the Surat Council
went in excess of this stipulation in sending
five vessels to revive and increase the trade
with Persia, and carry on naval operations
against the Portuguese. (Low’s “ History of
the Indian Navy.”)
In 1669 the Council at Bombay were urging
the Court at home to fit out three armed vessels
to serve as convoys for the Company s trade
in the Gulf, while ten years later the despatch
Of a squadron under the King’s Commission
to demand payment of customs arrears showed
that the Company were not disposed to relin
quish their rights in the Gulf.
During the reign of the four weak Princes
who succeeded Shah Abbas, though the
Persian dominions were reduced by Turkish
conquest, and the Arab rulers of Muscat took
possession of various islands in the Gulf,
the position of the English was strengthened
in some important particulars. Shah Abbas’®
firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). was renewed by his immediate suc-
cessor, and a Persian force was sent to
Bunder Abbas to protect the English factory An East India Company trading post.
against the Portuguese, who were threatening
a renewal of hostilities, while the English
offered to send ships to cooperate with the
Governor of Fars in dislodging the Portuguese
from Muscat, knowing that if they had not
done this the Dutch would have seized the
opportunity of ingratiating themselves with the
Persian Court. The Dutch, indeed, were threat-
ening a rivalry as embarrassing as that of the
Portuguese had been. They sent eight ships to
Bussorah, where the English had opened trade
in 1635, and almost ruined the factory An East India Company trading post. there.
At Bunder Abbas they proved such bad neigh
bours that the Company were forced to remove
the bulk of their property to Bussorah, and
though the factory An East India Company trading post. was retained until 1761, for
the last century of its existence it was the seat
of a very insignificant business; it enjoyed,
in those days, the. reputation of being one of
the most insufferably hot places in Asia, and
that reputation it has maintained to our own
day. The closing of the establishment at
Bunder Abbas was almost immediately followed
by the opening of a factory An East India Company trading post. at Bushire, which
has since become the political and commercial
headquarters of the British in the Gulf.
The GROWTH of British PRIVTHOES.
The event was important for other reasons.
The firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). under which the Bushire factory An East India Company trading post. was
established frankly concedes to the English a
peculiar and privileged position, the result, we
may fairly conclude, of the growth of their influ
ence as a trading power in India, and of the suc-
eess with which they had overcome the hostility
of their old rivals and enemies. Shan Karim
Khan’s firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). , of 1763, was granted to W. A.
Price, as « Governor-General for the English
nation in the Gulf of Persia,” and Benjamin
Jervis, Resident, in response to a demand for
"a grant of their ancient privileges in these
kingdoms.” It was expressly made out of the
Shah’s great friendship for the English nation•
and it concedes not only an unbounded, but a
Virtually exclusive liberty of trade to the English..
No customs were to be collected on goods
imported or exported by them. A monopoly in
the trade in woollen goods was conferred upon
them, and it stipulated that “if any person
whatever attempted to bring such goods in
clandestinely it should be lawful for the English
to seize them,” and that no “ European nation
whatever is to be permitted to settle at Bushire
so long as the English’continue a factory An East India Company trading post. here.”
We may doubt if this plain defiance, in our
interest, of the principle of the open door, was
fully carried into practice. But the firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’).
unmistakeably indicates the privileged nature
of the position which it was intended to confer
upon English trade and traders. A site for a
factory—which was to be built at the expense
of the Sheikh of Bushire—as well as a garden
and burial ground, was granted ; the servants
of the English were to be exempt from the
local jurisdiction, and the English were to
hoist their own colours, as they had been
allowed to do at Bunder Abbas, and to have
twenty-one guns for saluting. We must not
forget that this concession was granted during
the reign of a weak ruler, and in a time
of more than usual misgovernment and un-
settlement. But taken in connection with a
new firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). , granted in 1788 by Karim Khan’s
successor, who expressed his desire that the
English merchants should “ sleep in the cradle
of security and confidence,” it shows that
towards the end of the 18th century England
had attained a position in the Gulf to which
none of her competitors could lay claim. If
any single incident could emphasize this we
find such an incident in the presence at the
siege of Bussorah by the Persians in 1775 of
a squadron of the Bombay Marine The navy of the East India Company. , comprising
five vessels carrying nearly a hundred guns.
A power so represented was a power to be
reckoned with.
THE White Man’s BURDEN IN THE GULF.
We now come to a chapter in the history of
the English connection with the Gulf in which
little is heard of our rights and privileges in
those waters, but much is heard of our respon
sibilities. Here, if anywhere, in her world
‘ policy, the “ white man’s burden ” has rested
upon England; and despite occasional re-'
luctance to carry its full weight, she has
borne it, on the whole, unselfishly and well.
We have seen how, at the time of their co-
operation with the Persians in the expulsion
of the Portuguese from Ormuz, the East India/
Company undertook to keep two vessels in the
Gulf for the protection of trade. Now the
English were here beginning to do for Persia
what the Persians have never been willing to do
for themselves. The peculiar attitude of Persia:
towards sea polity is illustrated in the dimen-'
sions of the Shah’s navy, which consists to- 1
day of a solitary steamer, whose toy-shop:
qualities are indifferently concealed by an
armament scarcely more serious than the'
Persepolis herself. In looking, as some of us
Have done occasionally in the Harbour of
Bombay at this diminutive embodiment of
the sea power of Persia, it becomes easy
. to realise Sir John Malcolm’s remark,
already quoted, that “the Persians at all
periods of their history have abhorred and
dreaded the sea. ’ ’ The historical consequence
of this national characteristic has been, as
Malcolm pointed out, that the Arabs have pos
sessed themselves of the islands of the Gulf, and
of almost all the harbours along the coast, their