"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٨‎٠] (١٧٨٢/١٧٣٥)

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1883-1885.
1580
it and was increased to 16 rifles. In May 1882 it was raised to 25 f
all ranks, including a Native Officer.
In 1883 the Porte complained of the increase; and at the beginuiu
of 1884 Mr. Plowden, the Resident, reported on the question, giving the
history of the guard and its fluctuations from the first, explaining the
circumstances which necessitated its presence and governed its strength 6
a^id deprecating any reduction of it as a concession to Turkish demands'
lor the better part of a century the guard had been annually relieved
without remark on the part of the Turkish authorities; and Mr. Plowden
was inclined to attribute the objections now raised to the influence of the
Wali, Taqi-ud-din Pasha and other leading Turkish officials at Bao -hdad
whose dispositions were intensely anti-British, and to the policy of the
Turkish Government of the day, which aimed at the suppression of
foreign influence in all parts of the Empire. The facts of the case
having been explained to the Porte, nothing more was said upon either
side; but m March 1885, on the arrival of the yearly relief of the guard
by British steamer, the Turkish Chief of Customs at Baghdad expressed
to the Dragoman of the British Residency a doubt, eventually overcome
whether in the absence of special authority from Constantinople he
would be justified in allowing them to land with their arms.
1914 - At the beginning of 1904 an atrocious and discreditable affair took
place in the Residency guard, which during the hundred years of its
existence had hitherto remained, so far as is known, free from serious
crime.
During the absence of Major Newmarch, the Resident, on a winter
tour, Jamadar Ghulam Din, the Native Officer commanding the guard,
which was then a detachment from the 125th (Napier's) Rifles, dis
appeared ; and for some time no trace of him could be found. The
Jamadar. as a strict disciplinarian, was not very popular with his own
men; and there was also considerable feeling against him in the
regiment as a whole, on account of his having been promoted into it
with a commission from the 9th Bombay Infantry, in which he had been
a non-commissioned officer. At length, on the 11th February, informa
tion was given by a Lance-Naik of the detachment named 'Abdul Karim
which resulted in the discovery of the Jamadar's body, buried with his
hand lantern in a Khan or warehouse on the further side of the river
lenttd by Mr. D Arcy of the Persian Oil Company ; the corpse bore
fouiteen daggei wounds. Enquiry showed that the murder was probably
the result of a conspiracy in the detachment.
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