Page:Historyofpersiaf00watsrich.djvu/183

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MISSION TO LONDON.
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man the country could furnish to distress and harass the enemy. General Malcolm would not consent to accompany the Persian army into the field, unless he should be instructed to do so by the English ambassador: but this was a step which was not, under the circumstances, thought by his Excellency to be advisable. Two English officers were, however, placed at the crown-prince's disposal; and General Malcolm returned towards India, after having received the Order of the Lion and Sun, which was instituted in his honour.

In return for the embassy from King George III. the Shah sent Haji Meerza Abul Hassan Khan, the nephew of the late prime minister, on a mission to London, with the especial object of clearly ascertaining who was to pay the subsidy which he was entitled by treaty to receive from England.[1]

About this time the Wahabi Arabs attacked the island of Bahrein, on the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf an island to the sovereignty over which Persia advanced pretensions.[2] The Imam of Muscat informed the prince governor of Fars of his inability to make head against the Wahabis; and Sadek Khan, who commanded in Fars, was instructed to undertake an expedition for the purpose of punishing them: a service which he accomplished in a manner which satisfied the Persian Government, but which does not seem to have been followed by any permanent results.

In the meantime the Georgian war continued to rage. The Shah's eldest son was instructed to take 20,000

  1. It is this Persian envoy whose mission has been so amusingly described in Hajee Baba in England.
  2. See Palgrave’s Arabia.
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