'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎375] (428/714)

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES
376
a resident at the seaport of Enzeli for the management of the
silk tiade of Gilan. This is Forster's version. Hanway, who was
in Gilan within ten years of the evacuation, assigns as the true
reason the pernicious effect of the climate. 'The warmth and
dampness of Ghilan, together with the unwholesome fruits, ren-
deied that piovince the grave of the Russians, for which reason
the Empress Anne very prudently consented to evacuate the
country in 1734, without drawing any advantage from it.' 1 Wat
son, quoting from a writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' (vol. xxi.)
says that .Astrabad and Mazanderan had already heen restored to
Persia by a treaty concluded at Eesht in 1732 ; and that a further
treaty restored Gilan in 1735—statements which, if correct, would
absolutely dispose of any claim that Russia may subsequently have
felt disposed to make on the ground of the original concession.
There is a fourth version of the epilogue, which may be supposed to
reflect the view that might commend itself to a patriotic Persian,
whose amour propre could admit neither the voluntary occupation,
nor the peaceful retreat. According to this version Nadir Shah'
having obtained the throne, sent an imperious ultimatum to the
Russian commander, that unless the Russians disappeared from the
scene, he (Nadir) would send his ferashes (lit. carpet-spreaders),
to sweep them into the sea. It is the obvious sequel of this story,'
which is probably of later construction, that the Russians em
barked with great precipitation, and were no more seen. In 1746
the only relic of their occupation of the coast strip was a factory An East India Company trading post.
at Enzeli, and a commercial agent at Derbend.
That Shah Tahmasp himself attached very little validity to the
treaty with Peter the Great, had already been shown in 1730, in
Later which year he made a grant of Mazanderan, along with
Khorasan, Seistan, and Kerman to Nadir, as a reward
for the expulsion of the Afghans. The condition of the two mari
time provinces during the latter part of Nadir Shah's reign, the
oppression and misery and ruin that everywhere prevailed, are
admirably depicted in Hanway's pages, from which we learn how
a national hero soon transformed himself into an intolerable curse,
for whose removal men prayed almost in public. In the anarchy
consequent upon Nadir's assassination, a local chief named Hidayet
Khan raised himself and the province of Gilan to a position of
practical independence. When Kerim Khan Zend attained the
1 Historical Account, vol. i. p. 12.