"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎١‎٧] (١٧٨٢/٢٦٠)

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of a Company s servant, which will be necessary if they send any Woollen
goods up there/ - ' The chief imports at this time seem to have been broad
cloth and perpets, and a merchant representing both the Shah and the
Governor of Mrs once arrived at Bandar "'Abbas and wished to buy large
quantities of these. As, however, he proposed to pay for them by means
of bills on the customs officer, the British Agency refused to supply him ;
but the Dutch did business with him on his own terms.
At the beginning of 1737 Mr. Savage, in charge of the Company^ 1737
affairs at Kirman, reported that some Georgians had arrived there
from Isfahan with cloth from a * Factory which had recently been
established at Astrakhan, and that, in view of this fact, not more
than 1,000 or 1,200 Tumans 3 worth of the Company's woollen goods
could be disposed oi by him during the coming season. An obstacle to
trade in Kirman was the depreciation of the Persian silver coinage, consist
ing of "'Abbasis and Mahmudis, in consequence of which the Agent and
Council at Bandar 'Abbas decided to send not more thau one-fifth of the
year's woollen goods to Kirman, aud to take payment for the same only iu
'Abbasis at five Shahis, or in coined copper, or in old copper. The other
four-fifths were disposed of through the broker at Bandar 'Abbas, for
the sole alternative was to sell to the local governor, " who wou'd have
obliged them to take silver money at fifty per cent." A little later it
was reported that the broker found difficulty in getting rid of the
broadcloth and perpets which he had taken; that communication with
Kirman had been interrupted by the impressment of the Agency muleteers
to carry provisions to the camp of Nadir Shah, who was then besieging the
citadel of Qandahar; and that four or five foreign merchants had come to
Kirman to buy red wool for, it was supposed, the Aleppo market.
In 1740, notwithstanding the unsettled state of Persia, there was a
strong demand for English woollens; it appeared to be due to a
prohibition against the importation of woollens from Turkey. The
price of Kirman wool was however so high, in consequence of its being
taken to manufacture coats and caps for Nadir Shah's army, that Mr.
Savage was unable to purchase any at a reasonable price.
By the beginning of 1744 the British Factory at Isfahan, for a time 1744,
in abeyance, had been re-opened, and by this means the trade from Russia
into that part of Persia L id been altogether stopped. Encouraged by this
success the Agent and Council at Bandar 'Abbas were inclined to send
* This must apparently have been a Factory of the (British) Russia Company, with
whose operations on the Caspian and iu Northern Persia (chiefly in 1742-49) the natujs
of Elton and Hauway are associated.