HISTORY OF THE SHEIK OF feUSHIRE. 
23 
lowers and guards, cried out, “Woe be to that man who shall be found 
“ guilty of giving the smallest offence to any Englishman, or to any of 
“ his servants, or to any thing that belongs to him.” He added, indeed, 
that the present fate of the Sheik was the punishment of his ungracious 
behaviour to the English and swore, that, for his own part, nothing 
was so strongly the object of his mind, as the good will of our 
nation. The Khan further stated, that he had intended, in the pro- 
posed visit of the morning in conjunction with the Sheik, first to have 
read the firman to the Elchee, (the Embassador), and then to have 
executed it on the Sheik; but the Sheik had tempted him by an op¬ 
portunity so resistless, that he could not pay the full compliment to 
the Envoy of delaying the seizure till the communication had been 
made. 
Mahomed Nebee Khan, who is known to the English as the 
Persian Embassador at Calcutta, had procured the succession to the 
Government of Bnshire , at the price, it Was said, of forty thousand 
tomauns j-. 
At this moment the Vizir Hajee SuliM an was seized on the point 
of embarkation. The Khan had declared that he would not spare 
Bushire unless the Vizir was delivered to him. The people, therefore, 
of his own town intercepted his flight, and surrendered him to the 
Khan. But the cousin of the Sheik, whose fate was threatened in the 
* ie The Stieil-, indeed, had given cause of complaint to Brigadier-General Malcolm 
before the arrival of His Majesty’s Mission.” 
i “ He was originally a Moonshee, who got his bread by transcribing books and writing 
" letters for money. He taught Sir Harford Jones, when a young man at Bussora , to 
4 ‘ read and write Arabic and Persian. He afterwards became a merchant,selling small arti- 
w cles in the Bazar at Bushire , and being fortunate in his early trade, extended his speed* 
u lations still more largely and successfully: till, when an embassy to Calcutta was projected 
w by the King of Persia, he was enabled to appear (according to the report of his country- 
men) as the highest bidder for the office, and was consequently invested with it. Having 
itr enriched himself enormously by his mission, he has yet never failed to complain before 
M the King, of the evil stars which, by leading him to accept such a situation, had reduced 
him to beggary.” 
