"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎١‎٩‎٧] (١٧٨٢/١٣٥٢)

1197
The Company's goods at Basrah seem to have consisted at this time The Cora-
ohiefly of broadcloth, " perfects/'* " long ells " and other kinds of cloth ; ^ ade
but iron also was imported, apparently for the markets of Hawizeh and at Basrah,^ 0
Shushtar. From October to December was the best time to obtain 17S7 ' 28 •
freights for India, for the boats from Baghdad and the caravans from
Aleppo ordinarily reached Basrah in those months.
The amount recovered at Basrah between the 31 st of July 1737 and
the 1st of January 1728 as "consulage due to the Company amounted
to 26,904 Mahmudis and 19 Qurush. This consulage" was a duty
recoverable by English Ambassadors and Consuls on goods carried in
English ships, and was recognised by the 35th Article of the Capitula
tions j and, fiom its being collected at Basrah by the Company's
representative, it appears that he must have been invested with consular
status.f The rate of consula at this time is not stated.
MAH MUD I.
1730-54.
Relations of Turkish 'Iraq with Persia, 1730-54,
As explained in the chapter on the general history of the Gulf, war
prevailed, at the accession of the Sultan Mahmud I in 1730, between
Turkey and Persia; and it continued, with varying fortune and an
interval of peace after 1736, until 1744. The principal events of this
contest were, in ' Iraq, the operations of Nadir Shah against Baghdad
in 1733 and two attempts by the Persians to capture Basrah, of which
the second was made in 174 3.
In 1733J Nadir Shah, who had recently become regent of Persia on che Nadir Shah's
deposition of Shah Tahmasb, invaded Turkish 'Iraq and laid sieo-j to 0 P e y ations
Baghdad, of which Ahmad Pasha, the able and energetic son of Hasan Baghdad,
* r\ . „ •— — 1733.
* Quaere, perpets.
f It was apparently hi the power of the English Arnbassador at this t-*ine to appoint
a Consul anywhere in the Turkish Enapire—see Article 14 of the Capitulations in their
original form, as given in the Precis containing Information in regard to the first
Connection of the Honourahle Fast India Company with Turk 'sh Arabia, 1874,
Appendix A—but, from the circumstances in which a "Consular/ Birat " for Basrah
was obtained in 1764, [vxde page 1223 post) it would seem that until that year the con
sular character of the Company s representative there had not been formally admitted
by the Porte.
J According to Niebuhr, Nadir's siege of Baghdad lasted eight months, and in that
c^se it must have begun in December 1738.