"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٢‎٩‎١] (١٧٨٢/١٤٤٦)

lis;.
1291
The departure o£ Bonaparte for the East, and designs upon India
which he was supposed to entertain, brought the adequacy of British
representation at Baghdad under review in 1798. A British Residency
in charge of a European officer bad been set up at Baghdad in 1765,
but it was abolished again in 1766, and for fifteen years thereafter
Britain remained unrepresented at the headquarters of the Pashaliq. In
1781, as a middle course, a Native Agency was established. At length,
in June 1798, Mr. Harford Jones, who had been at home on leave since
1795, was summoned to the India House in London, and various plans
for counteracting the schemes attributed to Bonaparte were discussed
with him, including one by which he would have been associated with
Commodore Blankett in a mission to the Arab chiefs of the Red Sea
coast; but the issue of the deliberations was that, at his own suggestion,
he was appointed to Baghdad a by his Majesty, and the Secret Com-
mittee of the East India Company, to reside with Suleiman Pacha, in
" quality of political Agent, but more particularly for the purpose of
■' prevailing on that almost independent chief to assist the Porte with
" money, in disappointing the views on the East, whatever they might
u be, with which Bonaparte, and the expedition fitted out from
Toulon, had sailed.*" The appointment was made in London on the
5th July 1798, and the new "Resident at the Court of the Pacha of
Baghdadarrived at his destination on the 24-th of August following
and assumed charge of his duties, superseding Mr. Reinaud whom
Air. Manesty, the British Resident at Basrah, had deputed to Baghdad
a short time before as a temporary arrangement.
Joint action by the British and Turkish authorities in the East was
regularised by a treaty of defensive alliance with the Sublime Porte,
concluded by His Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary at
Constantinople on the 5th January 1799, of which the immediate object
was the co-operation of British with Turkish troops against the French
army in Egypt.
The existence of a new establishment of equal rank at the head
quarters of the Pashaliq of Baghdad must have detracted considerablv
from the importance of the older Residency at Basrah ; and eventually.
* Vide Sir H. J. Brydge 's Wahauhy, page 16. In a note on page 177 it is further
explained that The intent of this appointment was, in the event of the French
" influence prevailing at Constantinople, to endeavour to keep the Pasha staunch to
" us ; or if the Porte and ourselves drew together, to make him afford every assistance
" in his power to his Sovereign." (Since the above was written some correspondence
relating to the establishment of the Residency has been found by the present writer
at Baghdad: it is printed as Annexure JSo. II to this chapter.)
Establish
ment of a
British Resi
dency at
Baghdad,
1798.
Position of
the Resident
at Basrah,
1798-99.