Page 266 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

224 MUSK AT.

of affairs was greatly altered,—indeed it is difficult to say where matters
might have ended, or what disturbances might not have arisen, had
not
His Excellency Hajee Meerza Aghasee, then Prime Minister
at the
Court of Persia, withdrawn from office, consequent upon the death of
Mahomed Shah, which occurred at this season, and been succeeded by
a Minister more favourable to British views, and more inclined to give
ear to justice; for instructions had been issued by the Supreme
Government to the Resident, in reply to a reference he had made on
the subject, that lie was not to thwart or prevent His Highness from
carrying into execution his threat to blockade the Persian ports, in
the event of redress being refused him. These instructions had arrived,
and the Imaum had become desperate. Meerza Aghasce’s successor
was appealed to. He promised redress; he fulfilled his promise:
Fuzl Ali Khan was removed from his post, and matters were peaceably
settled.
On taking a retrospective review of the whole course of events, we
cannot but think that the Persian Ministers, previous to the demise of
Mahomed Shah, however much they appeared to disapprove of the
conduct of their subordinates, they did not do so in reality. On the
other hand, the Imaum, although, perhaps, all things considered, he
may be said to have acted with much forbearance and moderation,
conducted himself, it must be admitted, with considerable hastiness in the
outset. The opinion of the Resident at the time was that had His
Highness, in lieu of threatening to take the law into his own hands,
plainly and soberly laid his grievances before His Majesty the Shah,
full redress would have been afforded for any amount of wrongs he
had suffered at the hands of the Persian Government; but the precipi-
tate line of conduct His Highness adopted, the objectionable tone of
his written address to Shaikh Nassir, the proneness to take offence dis­
played by Shailc Syf bin Nubhan,—these all tended to provoke and
exasperate the Persian Ministers, and, naturally enough, to shut out
every hope of a peaceable settlement.
To speculate, however, on what might or might not have been the
result of this matter, appears both idle and profitless ; let us therefore
retrace our steps, and ascertain what was going on in other quarters.
Towards the close of the year 1847, His Highness the Imaum
espoused a grand-daughter of the late Fath Ali Shah. This marriage
occasioned considerable surprise to many, for no one had in any
heard of the proposed match until the lady made her ap-
way
pearance at Muskat, on her way to join His Highness at Zanzibar. Wo
attached to this Persian
political importance, it may be observed, was
connexion by the British Minister at the capital.