"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎١‎٩‎٤] (١٧٨٢/١٣٤٩)

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Malad minis
tration at
Basrah about
1721.
Muhatuiuad
Pasha
appointed
to Basrah,
1727.
affairs that he was permitted to retain Baghdad, Basrah and Mardin
as a single charge.
It seems probable, from the maladministration which prevailed at
the time of Captain Hamilton's acquaintance with Basrah, viz., about
1721, that the place had then only recently come under the strontj
rule of Hasan Pasha through his son Ahmad. Large Janissary forces
were maintained at Qurnah and at Basrah, the garrison of the former
being much stronger than that of the latter place; and 8 or 10 armed
galleys were maintained at Qurnah, as against only 5 at Basrah.
The officers of the galleys, under a " Captain Pasha " or Commodore
of their own, were at this time independent of the ordinary civil
authorities; and in 1721, in a rebellion of the civil population against
the governor of Basrah, by whose exactions they were being ruined,
the Mufti of Basrah and the Turkish naval officers ranged themselves
on the side of the rebels and formed a camp on the Shatt-
al-'Arab, apparently at or near Manawi ; and eventually the civil
governor, though no fighting took place, was obliged to come
to terms with them and to put to death one of his own minions, a
notorious blackmailer and extortioner. Official robbery was now the rule;
the native merchants looked back with regret to the days of the Persian
occupation; and e\en Europeans were not exempt from annoyance, for in
I 721, Captain Hamilton himself was compelled by the Pasha to part with
a quantity of pepper, which he had brought for sale, at a price below that
which had been offered him by merchants. Troubles between the Turks
and the Arabs, due to the rigorous collection of taxes by the former, appear
to have been not infrequent. Captain Hamilton gives minute details
of a case m which a party of Janissaries, sent to exact revenue, were
destroyed to the last man by the Arabs whom they had ? one to
coerce; he describes the affair as having occurred at Qubban ; but, from
his account, 'Abbadan Island seems more likely to have been the scene
of the tragedy.*
At the end of 1727 one Muhammad Pasha w r as appointed, presum*
* hy Ahmad Pasha of Baghdad, to the Government of Basrah.
English relations, 1687—1730.
t)uriug the first part of the half century with which we are now
concerned, the English trade with Basrah must have been carried on from
RU PP 0 ^ 0n n0 | f re e from difficulties, created perhaps bv some
change in the course of the«hatt -al-'Arab. it.