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                           In the present instance, seeing how decidedly, and I bclivc wisely, Her Majesty's
                        Government deprecate any dismemberment of Persia, seeing how mischievous an example
                        would be given to Russia in dealing with the subjects of Persia, and having regard to the
                        future embarrassment which we should lay up for ourselves, I am of opinion that the enlist­
                        ment should not take place,
                            I fear it is impossible to contend confidently that although we should effect a dismem­
                        berment for the moment, we should be able, upon the re-establishment of peace, to restore
                        to the Persian empire its integrity. This, when we have once fanned the flame of rebellion,
                        may be beyond our power, unless indeed we should be prepared hereafter to coerce into
                        re-subjection to the Shah, the tribes of whose aid in the field we wish to avail ourselves :
                        and such a course is not to be thought of.
                            It must be remembered that enlistment into our ranks, and submission to the discipline
                        and command of our officers, implies a service in a great degree voluntary, and of a nature
                        far more offensive to the Persian Government than those smaller services which,  as a
                        matter of necessity, and for the sake of subsistence and self-defence, an invading army is
                        compelled to exact.
                            Such a service as enlistment into the British army is not, I apprehend, contemplated
                        in Article VII of the draft of the proposed treaty between Her Majesty and the Shah, lately
                        received from the Secret Committee of the H. C., which stipulates for an amnesty in favor
                        of those who, from fear of damage to themselves and samilies, have afforded “ supplies and
                        different kinds of service to the invading forces, whom they were unable to resist.”
                            The inhabitant of an invaded country may plead with truth that he is compelled by
                        fear to surrender his stock, and his substance, and even to give information and some degree
                        of aid to the enemy ; and the offence is one for which amnesty may reasonably be required
                        from the Government when peace is made. But I do not see how this plea could be put
                        forward by large bodies of warlike men, well able to escape from serving us, even if they
                        could not resist us.
                           Nor do I see that we could support the plea if they adduced it.
                           It is also to be observed that in this war with Persia we have no interest in common
                        with the Persian tribes. There is no common cause of quarrel, no sympathy except in
                        hostility to the Persian Government. When the Shah shall concede our demands, the
                        Bakhtiarf and the K'Ab tribes will reap no benefit from our success.
                           They will have received our pay (if we enlist them) but nothing more; we have no
                        thoughts of exacting from the Persian Government any concessions to them, if indeed we
                        know what they desire. They may be supposed to seek the permanent weakening of the
                        Shah’s authority in a portion at least of his own dominions, and so far our object is opposed
                        to theirs, not in unison with it. There is certainly no political bond between us. They
                        would be our mercenaries, not our allies, in a cause, and I think there are grave objections
                        to taking our mercenaries from the Shah’s own subjects.
                           As to the future, the fierce denunciations which the Persian authorities have issued
                        against all who allow the invaders to obtain the smallest article of supply, might lead to the
                        conclusion that we should not compromise the future safety of the Shah's subjects to any
                        greater extent by taking them into active military service, than by trafficing with them.
                           But it is scarcely possible that this should be so. There is, notwithstanding the big
                        threats of the Persian Commander, a real and wide difference between the two kinds of aid ;
                        and if the opportunity and power of punishing a tribe for taking up arms in the British
                        ranks should present themselves to the Shah’s Government, it is not to be supposed that
                        the vengeance would not be sharper and more determined than if the offence should have
                        been the mere sale of provisions or camels.
                           Possibly the Bakhtiarf and K’Ab tribes may be strong enough to defend themselves
                        unaided against the ultimate consequences of their junction with the British force, but it is
                        not to be expected that this will lead them to forego their claim to protection from us.
                           If we meet that claim by requiring that they shall be included in the amnesty, we must
                        watch the observance of that amnesty in regard to them with more than usual care, and we
                        must be prepared to enforce it.
                           Our obligatious to the men who had stood in the ranks with our own soldiers would not
                        be light We should owe something more to them than to the peasants who had supplied
                        our camp, and our debt would be greater from the fact that they would have gained nothing
                        by the success to which they would have contributed.
                           Upon the whole the enlistment of tribes from within the Shah’s dominions, and whom
                        we must acknowledge to be under his rightful authority, appears to me to Jead directly
                        to the future protectorate of a portion of his subjects. An embarrassing condition of things
                        at best, and one which in this instance would be of the worst example to Persia’s neigh­
                        bours.
                           It is impossible not to foresee with Sir James Outram that an important means of
                        success  will be lost by abstaining from using the aid in arms, of those subjects of Persia
                        who are hostile to its Government. But probably it is not necessary that their assistance
                        should be entirely foregone because we refuse to take them into military service, or that
                        unless enlisted into our ranks they should be actively opposed to us.
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