'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎416] (447/582)

416
HISTORY OF THE JOASSAMEE PIRATES.
cruise in the Gulf. The second mate was still kept on shore, at
the town; the carpenter was sent into the country, to procure
materials and construct gun-carriages, &c.; and Mrs. Taylor was
still held in the most afflicting bondage for several months, and
was at length ransomed by Mr. Bruce, of Bushire, for a large sum.
A few weeks after this, the Sylph, one of the East India Com
pany's cruisers, of sixty tons, and mounting eight guns, was ac
companying the Mission under Sir Harford Jones, from Bombay
to Persia, when, being separated from the rest of the squadron,
she was attacked in the Gulf by a fleet of dows. These bore down
with all the menacing attitude of hostility ; but as the commander,
Lieut. Graham, had received from the Bombay Government the
same orders as all the rest of his brother officers in the Marine,
not to open his fire on any of these vessels until he had been first
fired on himself, the ship was hardly prepared for battle, and the
colours were not even hoisted to apprise them to what nation she
belonged. The dows approached, threw their long overhanging
prows across the Sylph's beam, and, pouring in a shower of stones
on her deck, beat down and wounded almost every one who stood
on it. They then boarded, and made the ship an easy prize, before
more than a single shot had been fired, and, in their usual way,
put every one whom they found alive to the sword. Lieut. Gra
ham fell, covered with wounds, down the fore hatchway of his
own vessel, where he was dragged by some of the crew into a
store-room, in which they had secreted themselves, and barricadoed
the door with a crow-bar from within; while a Persian passenger,
Mahomed Hussein Khan, who was attached to the Mission as a
secretary, had crawled into one of the cabin lockers abaft, with the
same view.
The cruizer was thus completely in the possession of the enemy,
who made sail on her, and were bearing her off in triumph to
their own port, in company with their boats. Not many hours had
elapsed, however, before the Nereid frigate, Captain Corbett, the
Commodore of the squadron from which the Sylph had separated,