نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٨‎٤‎٥] (١٨١٤/١٧٠٦)

COMMEKCE AND TRADE
551
ticularly towards its close, the tables were completely turned, the
sordid and exclusive spirit which had led the Dutch to sacrifice
everything to a monopoly of the spice trade proved their bane, and
in the great wars Holland lost nearly all of her colonial possessions
in the Eastern seas to her successful rival, Great Britain.
Meanwhile the fortunes of British trade in Persia may be briefly
traced. Firmans were procured from each succeeding sovereign,
British confirming, extending, or modifying the terms of previous
fortunes concessions. 1 The Sefavi monarchs appear to have been
endowed with strong commercial instincts, and Shah Sefi I., in
renewing the conditions granted by his predecessors, stipulated for
an annual present of 1,500L, and for the annual purchase from him
self of 60,000L worth of silk, one-third of which was to be paid
in coin and two-thirds in goods. The English business does not
seem to have been well managed at this epoch, and the jealousy
of the rival English companies was even felt in Persian waters, from
which dislike of the Dutch appears alone to have dissuaded the East
India directors from retiring. The Persians had almost from the
start violated the conditions of the Ormuz-Bunder Abbas compact,
and in 1679 the Court of Directors again seriously considered the
question of abandoning Persia altogether. A policy of protest and
petition was, however, decided upon. Charles II. had already
written a letter to Shah Suleiman, urging the reconsideration of an
edict issued in 1670, by which the amount annually paid to the
English at Bunder Abbas—according to the original agreement,
one half of the customs revenue—was fixed at 45,000 livres or
15,000 crowns ; but the Persian Government had declined to grant
any redress, taking refuge behind the paltry plea that the customs
were no longer its own to dispose of, having been farmed out to
a third party, and that the English had failed to observe othei
portions of the original bargain. In 1683, accordingly, Sir Thomas
Grantham was sent out from England with instructions to push
the British claim; 2 but, finding the port of Gombrun blockaded,
1 State Papers, vol. iii. No. 577, vol. iv. Nos. 852, 857 ; Bruces Annals, passim*
2 His commission and instructions are quoted in The Diary of William Hedges,
agent of the East India Company in Bengal, edited by Sir H. Yule (Hakluyt
Society), vol. ii. p. 168. The Company complained that, for many years, they had
been deprived of their ancient privileges, viz., ‘ the Agent to sit in the King s
divan or Councill, and an officer to sit in his Bundar or Custome House, to collect
half the Customes of Gombroon,’ and had only received 1,000 tomans yearly
instead of 40,000 tomans, the stipulated moiety. They claimed arrears for five