"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٩‎٢] (١٧٨٢/٢٣٥)

92
many native merchants would settle on an island under British protection,
that the new station would become the main centre of trade between
Masqat and Basrah, and that the petty chiefs of the mainland, instead of
charging import duties of 16 or 17 per cent, on British trade, would
compete against one another to attract it. Tn the opinion of the Agent ft
force of two ships and 300 men would be sufficient to cover the operation
of transfer, and he thought there was every reason to expect that the
customs receipts would be large enough to defray the expenses of any
military garrison that might be required. The Bombay authorities were
averse from this scheme, but they seem to have called for reports on the
islands of Hanjam and Bahrain, and these were furnished in the autumn of
the same year by Mr. AVood, the Agent at Bandar Abbas, who evidently
disapproved of both places and was himself inclined to recommend the
acquisition of a small existing fort on the south-eastern corner of Qiehm
Island under a grant from the Shah or from the Khan of Lar. A few
days later Mr. Wood, with the instability of whose character we shall
become better acquainted hereafter, wrote to Bombay deprecating the
proposed transfer altogether on the ground that the Agency at Bandar
'Abbas was perfectly safe, and that removal might lead to a rapture with
the Persians and give an advantage to the Dutch. He had lost sight,
apparently, of the inconvenience of extortions by local governors.
Mr. Wood's arguments, which agreed with their own inclinations, seem
to have satisfied the President and his Council at Bombay that no steps
need be taken ; and the question of removal slumbered until 1/60, when it
was revived, probably by the success of the Dutch settlement founded
on Kharag in 1753, by the capture and destruction of the British Agency
at Bandar 'Abbas by the French in 1759, and by the growing insolence
of the local chiefs near Bandar 'Abbas. A report on the feasibility of
obtaining another site having been required by the Presidency authorities
from the Agent, the commandant of the Hormuz fort was interviewed by
the latter, accompanied by a Captain Baillie, in the autumn of 1760;
but the Persian official, though he agreed to a British settlement being
formed on the island, could not be induced even by a bribe to surrender
the fort, and the prospects of obtaining it otherwise, whether by force or
under a grant from the Khan of Lar, also appeared doubtful. 1 he Agent
moreover considered that, even apart from those obstacles, Hormuz was
not an eligible,place, for supplies were non-existent, water scarce, and the
fort and buildings so ruinous that it would cost Rs. 80,000 to put them in
repair.
The President and Council at Bombay, upon receiving the Agent s
report, pointed out that he had unduly restricted his enquiries, for what