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1*50 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. ;
to obtain a portion of the Meer's property, as an indemnification
for the expenses the Company had incurred in co-operating
against him, but the Sheii^h refused his demands, when Mr.
]\Iorley proceeded to Bussorah, and left the Company's ship
' Revenge ' to cruise off the ishmd. Kharrack now re-devolved
to the Sovereign of Persia, and Hussein Sultan was appointed
Governor, and Admiral of the Gulf, with the title of Hussein Khan.
In 1775 took place the siege of Bussorah,* by the Persian
army of fifty thousand men, under the command of Sadoc
Khan, brother to Kurreem Khan, Shah of Persia, the Turkish
garrison scarcely exceeding fifteen hundred men. At this
time a squadron of ships of the Bombay Marine was lying in the
river Shatt-ul-Arab, near the creek off the city, consisting of
the ' Revenge,' a frigate of twenty-eight guns, ' Eagle,' of sixteen
guns, and ' Success,' ketch, of fourteen guns beside two other
;
ketches of fourteen guns each, built at Bombay for the Pasha
of Bagdad. " These ketches are commanded." says Parsons, who
had arrived at Bussorah overland from Bagdad, " by an English
midshipman in the Company's service, and have on board a few
English sailors ; the remainder of the crew are Turks. They carry
British colours." On the 6th of March, three officers, belonging
to the Company's cruisers, engaged on a shooting excursion,
were attacked by a large body of armed men, and left for dead
the boat's crew were also stripped and beaten, and their boat
taken away. In alliance with the Persians was a piratical prince,
whose dominions lay between Bussorah and the Gulf, called by
Parsons the " Shaub," who, having pushed up the river during
the night with fourteen of his galivats, began, on the 21st of
March, to transport across the river, under the protection of the
Persian batteries, the heavy guns and equipage of the besieging
army. On the following day, the Company's agents quitted their
factory in Bussorah, and went on board the ' Eagle' with the
treasure and valuables; and, during the afternoon, the ' Success,'
accompanied by one of the Pasha's ketches, succeeded in cap-
turing one of the Shaub's galivats, which was burnt, and in
damaging others before they reached the Persian camp near a
creek some distance from Bussorah. The other ketch
belonging to the Pasha, also returned the same evening, the
* Parsons gives a full description of Bussorah at this time. " The mud walls,"
he says, " are about twelve miles in circuit, and, although not half the enclosed
space is built on, jet it is a large city, and before the plague in 1773, was very
populous the population were computed to be upwards of three hundred
;
thousand, and, in September following, only amounted to fifty thousand, the
remainder, excepting twenty thousand who tied away, having fallen victims to its
fury. At this time they compute the inhabitants to be from eighty thousand to
ninety thousand souls. There are four gates and a sallyport, also a deep and
broad ditch which is wanting on each side the two principal gates, called Zobeir
and Bagdad. There are eiglit bastions, on each of which are mounted eight
brass guns, besides upwards of fifty brass cannon on ships' carriages, mounted
round the walls. There is also a battery of twelve brass guns at the Capitau
Pasha's quarters, little more than 100 yards below the creek's mouth."