Page 111 - The Persian Gulf Historical Summaries (1907-1953) Vol IV_Neat

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English connection with these waters there mnv
bo found the germ of the larger responsibility
and intluenco which this country was afterwards
to assume there. The Persians, who at all
periods of their history abhorred and dreaded the
sea, were glad to secure an undertaking from the
East India Company at the time of the expulsion
of the Portuguese from Hormuz, to maintain two
ships in the Gulf to protect trade, and six years
later the Surat Council went in excess of this
stipulation in sending five vessels to revive and
increase the trade with Persia, and carry on naval
operations against the Portuguese.
The rivalry of the Dutch soon became as em­
barrassing as that of the Portuguese had been.
They sent eight ships to Bussorah, where tho
English had opened trade in 10.15, nnd almost
ruined the factory there ; at Buudcr Abbas they
proved such bad neighbours that the Company
were forced to removo the hulk of their property
to Bussorah, nud though tho factory was retained
until 1701, for the last century of its existence it
was the scat of a very insignificant business.
Tho closing of the establishment at Bunder
Abbas was almost immediately followed by
tho opening of a factory at Bushiro, which
has since become the political and commercial
head-quarters of the British in the Gulf. The
Firman of Karim Khan, under which the
Bushiro factory was established in 1703, was
granted to one Price, as “Governor-General for
the English nation in the Gulf of Persia,” and
to a certain Benjamin Jervis, Resident, in
response to a demand for’ “a grant of their
ancient privileges in these kingdoms.” It con­
cedes not only an unbounded, but a virtually
exclusive, liberty of trade to the English. A site
for a factory, as well as a garden and burial
ground, was granted. Tho servants of the
English were to be exempt from the local juris­
diction, nnd the English wen* to hoist their own
colours, as they bad been allowed to do at
Bunder Abbas, and to hnvo twenty-one guns for
saluting. Taken in connection with a new
Firman, granted in 1788 by Karim Khan’s
nephew, who expressed his desire that the
English merchants should “ sleep in the cradle
of security nnd confidence,” it shows that towards
tho end of the eighteenth century England had
attained a position in the Gulf to which none of
her competitors could lay claim.