'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎541] (632/748)

OOMMEECE AND TRADE
between England and Persia which had been dropped 150 years
before. His death put an end to the scheme; but in December
1734 the Empress Anne, in faithful execution of his ideas, signed
a concession granting to British subjects the right of carrying
merchandise through Russia to and from Persia on payment of a
3 per cent, ad valorem duty. A little later, in 1738, John Elton,
an Englishman of rare, but impetuous, genius, and the real father
of the revived scheme, having acquired some experience of Central
Asia in the Russian service, and having formed the idea that the
resources of the Khanates might be tapped by a new route pro
ceeding from Astrabad to Bokhara, proposed to some of the factors
of the British Russia Company in St. Petersburg to open this new
artery of trade. With one Mungo Graham he left Moscow in 1739,
sailed from Astrakhan, landed at Pir-i-Bazaar, and having addressed
a formal petition to Reza Kuli Mirza, son of Nadir Shah, then
ruling as regent at Meshed in the absence of his father in India,
received a decree from the prince authorising him to land goods
and trade everywhere in the Persian dominions from the Caspian
to Attock on the Indus—an interesting corollary to Nadir's con
quests six months before—to hire or to build houses at Resht or at
any other place, and to pay custom dues only upon landing. Elated
by this advantage, Elton appears to have formed an altogether
exaggerated notion of the prospects of future trade. Returning
to St. Petersburg, he wrote a magniloquent letter to the British
minister, from which I have previously quoted, and so inflamed the
imagination of the London merchants that, in spite of the strenuous
opposition of the Turkey and Levant A geographical area corresponding to the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Company, and of the East
India Company, who were alarmed at competition from so novel a
quarter, a powerful movement was organised by the Russia Com
pany, the Government was won over, several members of the com
pany were called to the bar of the House of Commons to give ex
planations, and finally an Act of Parliament was passed authorising
and regulating the trade. The record of these and of the subsequent
proceedings has been handed down to us by the graphic pen of
Jonas Hanway, himself one of the leading spirits in the sequel,
and a London citizen and philanthropist of high repute and in
telligence. 1
1 An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, tyc. (4 vols.
1753; 2 vols. 1754, 1762). Jonas Hanway, though Dr. Johnson said of him that
* he acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by travelling at
home,' was eminent both as merchant, voyager, public official, philanthropist, and