Beschreibung:

# - Jones, Sir Harford (later Sir Harford Jones Brydges). HIS PERSONAL AND OFFICIAL PAPERS AS EAST INDIA COMPANY FACTOR AT BASRA, RESIDENT AT BAGHDAD AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO THE PERSIAN COURT, COMPRISING OVER 3100 ITEMS AND PROVIDING INTRICATELY DETAILED INSIGHTS INTO TRADE AND DIPLOMACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST FROM 1783 TO 1811, AND DEFENSIVE NETWORKS RAISED AGAINST THE NAPOLEONIC THREAT At the age of 19, Jones was posted to Basra in the service of the East India Company, to be assistant factor to the maverick Resident, Samuel Manesty. Apart from a few excursions to Bushehr and Schyras, he remained in the post for a decade (1783-1794). The papers from this first stage of Jones's career, mostly comprising letters to Jones from other East India Company agents in Bushehr, Baghdad, Aleppo, Cyprus and India (Fort St George, Calcutta, Bombay and Surat), reveal the minutiae of the Company's trade between India and the Persian Gulf ports. Jones was allowed to supplement his modest Company pay by trading privately. Official transactions for the Company are interspersed with details of Jones's own business ventures. It appears that Jones jointly owned at least one vessel with Manesty; a significant portion of their business involved the transport of Company mail and the horse trade. The letters to Jones (supplemented by his own letterbooks for 1786 to 1791 and accounts) abound with references to the sale or purchase of horses, greyhounds, wine, saffron, morocco leather, tobacco, wheat, barley, seeds, carpets, silk, pewter, lanterns and shoes; more specialised transactions include "fifty white Lamb Skins (for Aprons)" for the Masonic Society at Bombay, sporting guns and dogs, and books, maps and "valuable Manuscripts". Diamonds, emeralds, rubies and pearls require specialist knowledge and their handling by novices can prove dangerous. In one of his numerous letters to Jones, Manesty cautions against buying diamonds in Persia, but advises him nevertheless that "Constantinople is the best market for them, and...Brilliant, Rose and Table Diamonds of the first Water, will all sell at handsome Prices...", and that the emeralds Jones is to purchase on their joint account must be "Table Emeralds, or...pairs of Emeralds of the Shape of Pears, for Ladies Earings, of the old mine, which in these Countries are called Suadee, quite clear, without flaw, of a medium Color, between light and dark Green...". Jones's two letterbooks, containing copies of all his outgoing private and business correspondence between 1786 and 1791, reveal all the intricate details of commercial transactions within Basra and Persia, including deals brokered with local dignitaries. They also trace Jones's increasing familiarity with diplomatic manoeuvres on a local level and its effect on both his local influence and his trade. His continuous immersion in Middle Eastern life is further revealed by frequent references to the language and customs of the area, and to his de facto Armenian wife, Maria Goorjee, with whom he had three children. During Jones's various excursions to Persia, he and Jones exchanged extensive reports on any signs of unrest which might affect their trade, including, for example, the Montifick Arabs' rebellion against the Turkish government in Basra in 1787, the movements of the army of the Shah Jafar Khan and the aftermath of his murder in 1789. News of war and insurrection elsewhere reached Jones through his expanding network of contacts in other trading posts, particularly in India. The Third Anglo-Mysore War of the British against Tipu Sultan was at its height during Jones's last few years in Basra. The military setbacks suffered by the ineffectual governor of Madras, Sir William Medows, and the decisive intervention by Lord Cornwallis in Mysore are a recurring subject for Jones's correspondents. Following a dispute between Manesty and the Jewish community of Basra (about which frequent references are made in his correspondence with Jones), both h