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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: MISSIONS TO PERSIA AND
FROM PERSIA.

" TN the first decade of tho present century,” writes the Hon’ble George
J- N. Curzon (now Lord Curzon) in his Introduction to the Adventures of
Hajji Baba of Ispahan (Edition 1895), “Persia was for a short time the pivot
of the oriental interest of English and Indian Statesmen. But little known and
scarcely visited during the preceding century, it suddenly and simultaneously
focussed the ambitions of Russia ; the apprehensions of Great Britain; the
Asiatic schemes of France. Tho envoys of great Powers flocked to its
Court, and vied with each other in the magnificence of the display and the
prodigality of the gifts with which they sought to attract the superb graces
of its sovereign, Path Ali Shah. Among these supplicants for the Persian
allianoe, then appraised at much beyond its real value, the most assiduous and
also the most profuse were the British, agitated at one moment by the prospect
of an Afghan invasion of India, at another by the fear of an overland march
against Delhi of tho combined armies of Napoleon and the Tsar. These appre­
hensions were equally illusory, but while they lasted they supplied the excuse
for a constant stream of embassies, some from the British Sovereign, others
from the Viceroy at Calcutta, and were reproduced in a bewildering succession
of Anglo-Persian treaties. Sir John Malcolm, Sir Harford Jones, Sir Gore
Ouseley and Sir Henry Ellis were the plenipotentiaries who negotiated these
several instruments ; and the principal eo-adjutor of the last three diplomats
was James Justinian Morier, the author of JHajji Baba”
2. We had not only ambassadors going to Persia, hut also ambassadors
deputed by Persia to England or India, Haji Khalil Khan, and Mahomed Nubi
Khan that had interesting parts to play in India, the first meeting a tragical
end in a souffle between the Persians and Indian sepoys at Bombay with all
the fuss that was made over it.
3. It is not our intention to trace here the march and proceedings of these
ambassadors from beginning to end. There are interesting accounts published
of the doings of the British Envoys, a perusal of which, along with Morier’s
" Hajji Baba of Ispahan” is necessary to get a grasp of Persian politics of this
period. We must confine ourselves here to the movements of the envoys so
far as they bear on the Persian Gulf affairs.
4. The Selections from the State Papers regarding Persia and the Persian
Gulf 1600-1800, have made us acquainted with the proceedings of the missions
of Mehdi Ali Khan and Captain Malcolm, and the facts need not be repeated
here. We shall proceed with the history of the missions from 1801.

1285 F. D.