"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٣‎٧] (١٧٨٢/١٦٩٢)

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1537
very long at the mercy of so uncertain a Government as this. And the trade of the
country would subside to its pristine channels, namely small imive crafts run by people
too poor and obscure to think of anything better than getting on as best they could,
now submitting to extortion, now evading it through bribery or cunning, and leading,
generally, the precarious lives to which Asiatics are as a rule habituated.
Meanwhile active measures had been taken by the British Govern
ment, at Constantinople and in London, for the removal of the embargo
on British navigation. On the 4th August the Turkish Ambassador in
London, Musurus Pasha, informed Her Majesty's Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs that " the Porte had decided on revoking for the present
" the measures taken by the authorities at Baghdad with regard to the
" navigation of the Tigris by Messrs. Lynch and Co/s vessels/' but he
explained that this decision was subject to three conditions :—
1. That it was not to be considered as in any way prejudicing or
derogating from the rights claimed by the Porte in regard
to the navigation of the Tigris.
2. That the question of those rights and of the extent and nature
of the privileges conceded to the Company should be examin
ed and discussed between the two Governments.
3. That there should be no question of claims for compensation on
account of what had taken place.
To the last of these conditions Lord Granville informed the lurkish
Ambassador that he was unable to assent.
On the 4ith August opposition to the Euphrates and Tigris Steam
Navigation Co.'s operations in Turkish ; Iraq was suspended; and on the
20th August it was finally withdrawn. From observations made by the
Turkish Ambassador in London to Sir J. Pauncefote on the 15th
August, it appeared that the documents relating to British navigation
on the Tigris and Euphrates, and especially those constituting the
arrangement of 1846, were differently construed by British and Turkish
authorities; but it does not seem that the discussion of their proper effect
was carried to a conclusion, or that any common agreement as to theii
meaning was reached.
The interference of the Turkish Government with British navigation
in 1883 appeared to be partly due to the intrigues of local* aspirants to
a monopoly of navigation on the Tigris» as mentioned by C olonel
Tweedie; but the discovery by the Porte, apparently in 1881, that the
Farman of 1834 referred to the Euphrates and not to the 1 ig 1 ^, ma)/
♦A Jewish firm at Baghdad were stated to have applied for and obtained a conces
sion ijr navigation.
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