bearings before his Majesty's government, in the best way I am able, I shall proceed to divide the question into the five following leading branches. 1st. Whether Russia has shown designs and projects Eastward.

2ndly. The present state of Persia.

3rdly. The probable result of her being left to Russian intrigues and of the influence of Russia in the East.

4thly. The military topography of Persia.

5thly. On the means of rendering Persia strong and united.

With regard to the leading point, a single glance will probably be deemed sufficient, since it can scarcely be doubtful that the intrigues of Russia must be sufficiently known to government, from different and more correct sources than could fall to the knowledge of any individual, during travels, however extensive they may have been, and however favourable to such acquisition.

As far back as 1717, Peter of Russia sent Prince Alexander Bekewitch with a force to seize the gold mines of Khiva, and open a commerce with India; but the expedition failed.

Peter passed the Caucasus in 1719, and in 1722

gained, by treaty, Ghilan, Mazanderan, and Astrabad, which were regained by Nadir Shah, in 1735. In 1800, the Emperor Paul incorporated Georgia with Russia.

The treaty between Napoleon and the Shah of Persia, ratified in May, 1807, at Finkenstein, arranged the invasion of India; and General Gardanne was sent to the Shah, in consequence, to forward the details of its execution.

In 1814, the treaty of Goolistan gave Russia all her acquisitions south of the Caucasus. The Persians engaged not to keep a fleet on the Caspian, and Russia on her part engaged to support Abbas Mirza's succession, to whose court at Tabreez a Chargé d'Affaires was immediately sent, and where a Mission has remained ever since.

In 1822, the Russian Ambassador gave a Memoir to the Shah, exciting the war against Turkey; which circumstance being brought home, the act was disavowed by Russia, and her Ambassador was removed.

During this war, Mohammed Ali Mirza, in marching against Bagdad, sent Daoud Satoree* to

* Daoud Satoree, a native of Bagdad, who died at Ispahan on his way southward, mentioned before his decease that he had

propose to assist the Emperor Alexander, by giving him Bussora, and to co-operate in his projects towards India, if he would guarantee that Prince's succession,-but the latter died, and the invasion

failed.

General Mouravief was then sent on a special mission to the Khan of Khiva; but he was imprisoned, and he failed in his object, which was supposed to relate to the march of troops.

In violation of our part of the treaty of Goolistan, framed by Sir Gore Ouseley to obstruct the march of troops, &c., secret articles were added to the late treaty of Turcomantchai to provide supplies in case a Russian army should have occasion to march through Persia.

In this treaty it was provided that if the subjects of either party should encroach on the other,

been employed on this delicate matter between St. Petersburgh and the Shah. The outline of this plan I lately learned at Aleppo from an individual who had a share in it. The first idea seems to have sprung from Vaisseau, the former consul at Bagdad, and was immediately approved of by Napoleon, who, after the necessary inquiries, formed his plan of landing at the ancient Seleucia (from Toulon), and then marching to Maragh, which was to be the pivot of operations along, or by, the Euphrates to Bussora, which city was to be fortified as a place of arms for the conjoined ulterior operations against India. A person awaited the fleet, provided with a signal, but the Russian war called the troops elsewhere.

or proceed to acts of violence towards persons or property, the injured party should consider it a breach of the treaty,* and resent it accordingly.

No theatre could possibly be more favourable to the gradual schemes of a designing power than that of Persia, where the personal interests and intrigues of several princes are directly opposed to each other, and the people at large are almost indifferent to the result, being perhaps quite as well disposed to be satisfied with a government altogether foreign, as with the continuance of the present dynasty, which has been so fatally prolific in the number of princes and governors, each grinding the people under him to the utmost; and the whole kingdom being open to the most barefaced bribery, from the highest to the lowest; it is therefore no very difficult task for such a cunning, calculating power as Russia to gain a very commanding interest, for which purpose she has only to espouse the cause of any one of the Princes, whose success must then be certain, distracted as the country is. Thus placed on the throne at the expence of a heavy load of debt, in gratitude and cash, he must in spite of himself become the

* A similar provision was inserted in the treaty of Adrianople.

mere tool of Russia, which power would in this way succeed in obtaining the real disposal of all the resources of Persia, where a formidable army may be easily formed at a very moderate expence, and without any difficulty, because our system has prepared the Persian to receive that military discipline for which his abstemious, hardy habits so peculiarly fit him. Fifty thousand efficient men, organized by Russia, would speedily conquer and subject most completely Bokhara, Herat, Candahar, and the other provinces as far as the Indus, thus obtaining a paramount influence in central Asia, which would seriously threaten, if not completely command, by its central position, Bagdad, Kourdistan, and the other weakened portions of Asiatic Turkey and Persia. This latter country, instead of continuing divided and miserably weak, would then prove so fearfully strong that no future exertion of an ordinary kind could dispossess such an enemy as Russia. Once established there, she would ever remain so; and its possession, besides other advantages, would give her the choice of six routes, by any of which she could ultimately move towards more tempting regions, viz., two routes through the Usbeck and Turcoman territo