'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.' [‎473] (504/582)

ISLAND OF ORMUS.
473
sible to succeed without the aid of a naval equipment. The
English were ready auxiliaries. An agreement, which exempted
them from paying customs on the merchandize they imported
at Gombroon, and gave them a share of the duties taken from
others, added to boundless promises of future favour, were the
bribes by which the agents of the East India Company were
induced to become the instruments of destroying this noble
settlement. A fleet was soon collected: Persian troops were
embarked, and the attack made. The Portuguese defended
themselves bravely; but, worn down by hunger and fatigue,
and altogether hopeless of succour, they were compelled to sur
render. The city was given over to the Persians, by whom it
was soon stript of all that was valuable, and left to a natural
decay. Abbas was overjoyed at the conquest; but all the mag
nificent plans which he had formed from having a great sea-port
in his dominions, terminated in his giving his own name to
Gombroon, which he commanded to be in future called Bunder
Abbas, or the Port of Abbas. #
4 The hopes which the servants of the East India Company
had cherished from the expulsion of the Portuguese from Ormus,
and their other possessions, were completely disappointed. The
treaty which Abbas entered into to obtain their aid, by which
it was stipulated that all plunder should be equally divided, that
each should appoint a governor, and that the future customs both
* If the English ever indulged a hope of deriving permanent benefit from the share they
took in this transaction, they were completely disappointed. They had, it is true, revenged
themselves upon an enemy they hated, destroyed a flourishing settlement, and brought rum
and misery upon thousands, to gratify the avarice and ambition of a despot, who promised to
enrich them by a favour, which they should have known was not likely to protect them even
durin, his life, from the violence and injustice of his own officers, much ess during that of
his successors. The history of the English factory An East India Company trading post. at Gombroon, from this date till it was
finally abandoned, is one series of disgrace, of losses, and of dangers, as that of every such
establishment in a country like Persia must be. Had that nation either taken Ormus for
itself or made a settlement on a more eligible island in the Gulf, 't wonld have earned on .ts
commerce with that quarter to mneh greater advantage; and .ts polmcal mfluence, both m
Persia and Arabia, would have remained unrivalled.
3 p