"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٢‎٥‎٥] (١٧٨٢/١٤١٠)

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1255
Daylight showed that the attack had been repulsed, and Mr. Parsons
after wards saw 21 Persian heads exposed at the Baghdad and Znbair
gates; but he was obliged to listen to curses invoked on the British
name, and to hear Mr. Moore abused as the cause of the Persian
invasion. In the afternoon Mr. Parsons and four gentlemen belonging
to the 1 actory were tempted by curiosity to make a circuit of about ten
miles along the walls : they found 500 men quartered at each of the
two principal gates and some 200 on each bastion ; even the rich Jewish
ami Armenian merchants had now been obliged to take up their residence
near the ramparts; and, to the general surprise, the Carmelite Fathers
had voluntarily elected to do the same, apparently by way of showing a
good example. The credit of repelling the Persian assault during the
previous night appeared to rest chiefly with Shaikh Thamir and his
Muntafik warriors.
Meanwhile, however, on hearing that the Persians had attacked
Basiahj the Arab Shaikh ''Abdullah had fled incontinently from Zubair.
The whole of the livestock and supplies that he left behind, which accord
ing to one estimate might have provisioned the town of Basrah for a
couple of months, fell into the hands of the Persians, to whom they
must have been a fortunate windfall.
April the 10th passed quietly until the evening; but about 9 p.m.
the Pasha's Gallivats, which were moored on the further side of the
river near to the boom, discovered men on shore and fired at them; and
shortly afterwards the two boats in the boom closest to that bank were
found to be on fire, as was also an adjoining village. The village, upon
which the Success"" fired repeatedly, continued to burn for about six
hours.
Th^ Agent and his Council, the latter consisting of Messrs. Green
and Latouche, had written to Bushehr on the 23rd of March, urging
Mr. Beaumont, who was detained there by the Persians, to despatch to
them without delay any of the Company's cruisers which might happen
to arrive from Bombay. Their letter reached Mr. Beaumont at Bushehr
on the 30th of the same month, but there was not then any British
vessel at the port. Later, the Persian fleet from Bushehr having made its
appearance in the river below Basrah with the evident intention of
joining the Ka'ab fleet above, and there being no longer much prospect
of a vessel being able to arrive from the Gulf to his assistance, Mr. Moore
thought it prudent to retire from Basrah. He made no attempt to save
the Company's goods by shipping them, but left everything behind except
the Agency treasure, which had already been embarked, at the mercy of
10th April.
Withdrawal
of the British
Agency from
Basrah to
Bushehr,
11th to 15th
April 1775;