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Lordship. Those I have now tho Honor to oncloso with Translations,* and itT • AiiohMjn «
but romains to take a view of the reasons that .have guided my judgement in the vX™ x! p»g«
Conduct of this important mission, and to express my anxious hope that 6uch 87—16'
will prove satisfactory to Your Lordship.
3rd. I shall first take a retrospoct of the progress and accomplishment of
tho Political objects to_ which Your Lordship directed my attention; secondly,
of tho Commercial; and, lastly obscrvo on tho causes that induced me to admit
of a departure from the usual forms in the drawing out of tho Treaties con
cluded.
4th. In the Instructions which I received from Lieutenant Colonel
Kirkpatrick under date the 10th of October 1799, my attention waB directed
by Your Lordship to two Political objects of importance the first to prevent
Tumaun Shauh from invading Hindoostan and the second to engage the King
of Persia to act vigorously and heartily against the French, in the event of
their attempting to penetrate to India by any quarter that it might he practi
cable for him to oppose their progress.
6th. In pursuing the first of these objeots, my consideration was called to
two points; one to provide against any invasion of India for throe years, the
period respecting which I learned from my Instructions there was most solici
tude; and the other to.obtain, if.I could, on equitable conditions,! additional
security to the British Possessions in India (should I discover from my Intel
ligence that Shauh Tumaun was likely hereafter to receive his scheme of
i
Invasion) by concluding with the King of Persia a Treaty of defensive nature
calculated to curb the ambition of the Afghan monarch.
6th. Prom the date of my instructions, I of course considered that the
seasons 1800, 1801 and 1802 were those in which Your Lordship was most
desirous to prevent Invasion, and it appeared that if I succeeded in accom
plishing that point the negotiations relative to tho primary objeot of my
mission became less urgent, and more likely from that circumstance to_.be con
cluded on equal terms.
7th. By my former dispatches, Your Lordship was fully informed of the
events of last season. In the operations of which, though the King of Persia
was unsuccessful, his advance into Khorassaun brought Shauh Tumaun to this
quarter, and removed all apprehensions of his Invading India in 1800,!and the
lateness of the season at which he returned to Kabul joined to the alarm which
that * prince must have taken on hearing of a mission so splendid as that with
which I was charged reaohing the Court of Persia at such a period, left me
without a doubt of his abandoning all thoughts of prosecuting his intentions
against Hindoostan for the year 1801. The ensuing season of 1802 only
remained, and it seemed to be of ultimate importance to use every endeavor
that could aid in keeping off all danger for that year. No means appeared so
likely to produce that effect as the advance of the King of Persia into
Khorassaun in the spring of eighteen hundred and one; as such a movement
could not fail of bringing Shauh Tumaun to Heraut, and of detaining him
near that city till the commencement of next winter.
8th. Although the two last campaigns of the King of Persia in Khorassaun
bad disheartened his army not a little, and there were not wanting counsellors
who wished to divert him from so ardous an enterprise as the reduction of the
provinoe, and to persuade him to turn his arms to other directions. It was
,