Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/668

638 PERSIA [MODERN 1598-1641. priate conclusion of the narrative of events as above summarized. European " In 1598 Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley, two English gentle- envoys, men, arrived at the Shah s court at Kazvin with a numerous retinue. They were well received, and after some months Sir Anthony returned to Europe with credentials to several Christian princes. Robert, with five Englishmen, remained at the court of the Shah. He married a Circassian lady named Teresia, and in 1607 was sent by Abbas as his ambassador to James I. of England. After travelling through Europe and remaining a long time at Madrid, Sir Robert Shirley and his Circassian wife landed in his native country in 1.611, and was received by James I. with every respect, as the ambassador of a powerful sovereign. His object was to open a trade between England and Persia, but he did not meet with success, owing to the opposition of the Levant mer chants. He sailed from Dover with his wife in 1613, and after visiting the court of the Great Mogul, reached Isfahan in 1615. He was soon afterwards sent as ambassador to Spain, where he re mained until 1622. In 1618, while Shirley was residing at Madrid, the government of Philip III. of Spain sent an embassy to Persia, at the head of which was Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, an able and learned diplomatist, who made good use of his time in collect ing information, and in writing a detailed account of his mission and of Persia, including a Life of Timur. Garcia de Silva landed at Ormuz, and proceeded thence to Shiraz, where he was most hospitably entertained. The ambassador was forwarded to Kazwin in June, and had an audience of the Shah, who received him very graciously. Many conversations afterwards took place between Abbas and the stately Spaniard, touching Spanish victories over the Turks, and other matters of state. But the main object of the embassy, namely, security for Ormuz, which was now, through the absorption of Portugal, a Spanish possession, was not obtained. Garcia de Silva returned home by way of Aleppo, and embarked at Tripoli for France on ]2th November 1619, devoutly praying that his friend the Shah might be victorious over the Grand Turk. "In the meanwhile Shah Abbas was occupied in establishing and regulating the important trade of the Persian Gulf. Lar had previously been completely subdued ; and Fars was ruled by one of the Shah s most trusty and faithful servants. In 1622 the Shah determined on the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Persian Gulf. They had seized upon the Isle of Ormuz in 1507, under the famous Albuquerque, and in their hands it had attained great prosperity, and become the emporium of all the commerce of the gulf. But they were quite independent of the Shcdh of Persia, whose jealousy and resentment they excited. Assisted by the English East India Company, Abbas collected a fleet at Gombroon, and embarked a Persian force under Imam Kiily Khan. They laid siege to Ormuz, and the Portuguese, having no hope of succour, were forced to surrender. The island is now covered with desolate heaps of ruins. The port of Gombroon, on the mainland, and sheltered by the islands of Kishm and Ormuz, rose on the fall of the Portuguese city. It received the name of Bandar Alias, and both the English and Dutch were allowed to establish factories there. " In 1623 Sir Robert Shirley again arrived in England on an embassy from the Shah ; and in 1627 sailed for Persia, in company with Sir Dormer Cotton, who was sent as envoy from Charles I. of England to the Shah of Persia. They landed at Gombroon in 1628, and Sir Dormer obtained a very gracious reception from Abbas, at Kazvin, where he soon afterwards died. Sir Robert Shirley had now grown old in the service of Persia. On his return he was slighted by the Shah and his favourite, Muhammad Aly Beg, and he died at Kazvin in July 1628. Of all the brave and gallant adven turers of the glorious age of Elizabeth, Sir Robert Shirley was by far the greatest traveller, with the exception, perhaps, of Anthony Jenkinson. Charac- At the age of seventy, after a reign of forty-two years, rand Abbas died at his favourite palace of Farahabad, on the Abbis coas t f Mazandaran, on the night of the 27th January 1628. Perhaps the most distinguished of all Persian kings, his fame was not merely local but world-wide. Ispahan was his capital, and he did much for its embellishment and enlargement. At his court were ambassadors from England, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and India. To his Christian subjects he was a kind and tolerant ruler. His conquests have been already mentioned but there are few sovereigns of an age so closely following the mediaeval who have done such real good to their country by material improvement and development of resources. The establish ment of internal tranquillity, the expulsion of interlopers and marauders like Turks and Uzbeks, the introduction of salutary laws, and the promotion of public works of utility these alone would render remarkable his two-score j ears of enlightened government. Even in the last quarter of the 1 9th century the gratified traveller admires the magni ficent caravansaras which afford him rest and shelter, and the solid bridges which facilitate his " chapar " (posting), and of which, if he ask particulars, he invariably hears that they were constructed by Shah Abbas. 1 With a fine face, "of which the most remarkable features were a high nose and a keen and piercing eye," 2 he is said to have been below the middle height, robust, active, a sportsman, and capable of much endurance. It is, however, to be regretted that this monarch s memory is tarnished by more than one dark deed. The murder of his eldest son, Sufi Mirza, and the cruel treatment of the two younger brothers, were stains which could not be obliterated from the page of history by an after-repentance. All that can be now said or done in the matter is to repeat the testimony of historians that his grief for the loss of Sufi Mirza was profound, and that, on his death-bed, he nominated that prince s son (his own grandson) his successor. Krusinski adds that, on being told at that time by his confidential officers of a prophecy which some astrologers had made to the effect that the new king would reign but three months at most, he replied, " Let him reign as long as he can, though it be but three days. I shall be glad of the assurance that one day, at least, he will have that crown upon his head which was due to the prince, his father." Sam Mirza was seventeen years of age when the nobles, Sh4h in fulfilment of the charge committed to them, took him Sufi, from the "haram " and proclaimed him king under the title of Shah Sufi. He reigned fourteen years, and his reign was a succession of barbarities, which can only be attributed to an evil disposition acted upon by an education not only wanting the ingenue artes but void of all civilizing elements and influences. Taught to read and write, his diversions were to shoot with the bow and ride upon an ass. There was a rumour, moreover, that his father, to stunt the possible growth of wit, ordered him a daily supply of opium. When left to his own devices, he became a drunkard and a murderer, and is accused of the death of his mother, sister, and favourite queen. Among many other sufferers Imam Kuli Khan, conqueror of Lar and Ormuz, the son of one of Abbas s most famous generals, founder of a college at Shiraz, and otherwise a public benefactor, fell a victim to his savage cruelty. During his reign the Uzbeks were driven back from Khurasan, and a rebellion was suppressed in Gilan ; but Kandahar was again handed over to the Mughals of Dehli (Delhi), and Baghdad retaken from Persia by Sultan Murad, both serious national losses. Tavernier, without charging the shtih with injustice to Christians, mentions the circumstance that "the first and only European ever publicly executed in Persia was in his reign." He was a watchmaker named Eodolph Stadler, who had slain a Persian on suspicion of intrigue with his wife. Offered his life if he became a Moslem, he resolutely declined the proposal, and was decapitated. His tomb is to be recognized at Ispahan by the words "Cy git Rodolphe" on a long wide slab. Shah Sufi died (1G41) at Kashan and was buried at Kiim. His son, Abbas II., who succeeded him, appears to Abbas have possessed some good qualities, and to have been IL actuated by liberal sentiments ; but his accession to the throne in extreme youth, and the restraint put upon him by his advisers, were fatal to healthy development, and on arriving at an age which should have been that 1 It would be unfair, however, to forget that there are, in parts of Persia, especially Karman, some fine caravansaras whose construction is due to the munificence of governors or private individuals. Abbas seems certainly to have set the example, and to have furnished the best specimens. - Malcolm.