[32] Malcolm wrote from Bombay on the 15th of April, stating the course of policy he intended to pursue, and the tone of remonstrance he purposed to adopt, at the same time urging the Governor-General to suspend the mission of Sir Harford Jones. In this letter he says that he should despair, “from his knowledge of Sir Harford’s character and former petty animosities on the same scene, of maintaining concord and unanimity in the gulf one hour after his arrival. Sir Harford,” he added, “is not in possession of that high local respect and consideration in the countries to which he is deputed that should attach to a national representative.”
[33] MS. Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm.
[34] MS. Records.—Copies of these letters were obtained by the Mission, and are now before me. I do not find in them anything to give colour to the suspicion that it was intended forcibly to detain Pasley at Shiraz. But such appears to have been the impression at the time, and may have been the case. Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay to his son-in-law, Mr. Rich, at Bagdad, counsels him to be prepared for a rapid retreat, and adds, “Pasley was very nearly made prisoner at Shiraz.”
[35] MS. Records.
[36] “General Malcolm came round to Calcutta in August to communicate the information he had been able to collect, leaving his secretary at Abushire, who was obliged subsequently to quit the place to prevent his person being seized by the Persian Government, instigated by the French agents.”—[From letter of Instructions sent by Supreme Government to Mountstuart Elphinstone, in 1809.—MS. Records.]
[37] Another passage from this letter is worth quoting in the margin:-“What I doubt (for I presume to go no further), is, whether it be for our interest to force on the course of events in the present circumstances. You are a man of frank character and high spirit, accustomed to represent a successful and triumphant government. You must from nature and habit be averse to temporise. But you have much too powerful an understanding to need to be told, that to temporise is sometimes absolutely necessary, and that men of your character only can temporise with effect. When Gentz was in England, in 1803 (during the peace), he said to me, that ‘it required the present system, and the late ministers;’ for nothing required the reality and the reputation of vigour so much as temporising.”—[Mackintosh to Malcolm, July 13, 1808.]
[38] The first letter appears to have been written on the 10th of August. On the 22nd, Brigadier Malcolm landed at Calcutta. On the same day a letter was sent to Sir Harford Jones, directing him to wait for further orders, and on the 29th another and more urgent communication was addressed to him, with the intent of annulling his mission. It appears that in those days a letter took more than three weeks to accomplish the journey between Calcutta and Bombay. The Governor-General’s letter of the 10th of August must have reached the latter place about the 5th of September. Jones says, “In seven days from receiving Lord Minto’s letter, I embarked on board La Nereide, and she, with the Sapphire, and a very small vessel belonging to the Company, called the Sylph, sailed out of Bombay harbour for Persia on the 12th of September, 1808.” Malcolm had calculated that the letter of August 22nd would reach Bombay by September 13th; and that in all probability Jones would not embark before that date. But, as usual, he was over-sanguine.
[39] MS. Correspondence.
[40] MS. Correspondence.
[41] For example, in one of his minutes written about this time, he says: “It appears doubtful whether the partition of European Turkey will precede the French expedition to India. There appears to be reason, by the late advices, to suppose that the consent of the Porte may have been obtained to the passage of the French army. In this case, the approach of the army may be earlier than on the former supposition, and it will have less difficulty to encounter. The route of our divisions must in this event be through the territory of Bagdad.... I incline, under all the circumstances now known to me, to think that the force stationed at Karrack should be greater than we before looked to.”—[MS. Records.]