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late years been four, and wore never loss than two and a half, are now reduced
to one P. cent.
14th. The conditions on the part of the Honorable Company are of the
most general nature, and calculated more to give the Treaty an equitable
appearance than to burthen the English Government with any serious engage­
ments. That contained in the additional article, by which it is stipulated
that tho present duties on the Goods which constitute tho Trade botwcon the
two nations shall not be increased, is tho only exception to this remark, and it
was one which I could not on every principle of justice refuse to make.
15th. I endeavored, in consequence of Your Lordship’s Instructions, con­
tained in Lieutenant Colonel Kirkpatrik’s Letter of the L3th of July 1800, to
obtain a cession of tho Island of Kishma, but discovering that suoh was likely
to be attended with difficulty and that the King of Persia wished to connect
it with other points relative to possessions in the Gulph, that, I by no means
considered myself authorised to treat upon, I contented myself with keeping
this point of the negotiation open, for the final settlement of Your Lordship ;
it was, in oonsoquence, inserted in tho additional article of the Treaty that the
further arrangements relative to the commerce between the two states was
entrusted to Hanzeo Khulleel Khaun, who is appointed Ambassador to Your
Lordship, and on this subject I can only add my conviction that if circum­
stances hereafter lead Your Lordship to desire this cession that it will be easily
effected.
16th. It now only remains to account to Your Lordship for the deviations
from Form that I have been obliged to admit in the enclosed Treaties, and to
state, the reasons, that govornod my conduct in this particular, I shall first
presume to mention in a general manner tho leading causes that seriously
operated against my forming any treaties whatever with this state, and then
detail the circumstances that have prevented the engagements I have con­
cluded being as correct in point of Form as I could have wished.
17th. Tho Government of Persia which is I imagino at once the most
prejudiced, proud and absolute in the world, is a total stranger to regular
Engagements. Papers and Letters by which peace has been established have
no doubt often been written by its kings, ministers and Generals, but such,
as far os my information goes, have always been most loose and desultory,
and in total opposition to all forms on similar occasions in Europe.
18th. This government has ever considered the English as well as the other
European Nations, as Traders and merchants that benefited by a commerce
with Persia, and, as suoh, ha9 often granted them Firmans of protection, and
privilege but never thought for a moment of entering into any regular alliance
with them. It is true tho late acquisitions of tho British Government in
India, (indistinctly related by merchants) has within these few years spread
the fame of that nation, but the Persians have still a very inadequate idea
of its greatness and power, and it is almost impossible to explain to them the
nature of the Honorable Company’s Government, and of the delegated Powers
vested in the Governor General in a manner to satisfy them of the latter’s
competency to treat immediately and on a footing with an independent
Sovereign. The ignorance of tho Empire over which he presides, and the
want of knowledge of tho customs of civilized Nations caused in the present
instance the kiDg of Persia to make objections on this head which though
I was able to evade, I could never entirely remove.