_ 62 _ This Hajji Fayat asked me many times to send a factor of Basra, saying that this was that main things that Muhammad Pasha had sent to ask me and what he most wanted, as the caravans and merchants are unwilling to go to Basra until a factor had been sent there from me. In order to receive advice on this and to do what was most in the interests of His Highness. I sent for the most important people in the city, some twenty-eight or thirty persons, and I ordered the Chief Treasury Officer to administer an oath on the Holy Gospels and that they should examine whether it was in the interests of our Lord the King for me to sent a factor to Basra, and also some terradas which were ready here. They all said on oath that they thought it a good idea to have a reliable man in Basra to send me information and anything that might be necessary from there, and that I should also let the terradas go. I thought that this would be of service to the King, so that they will not be able to make any decisions without my knowing, and also to have news from Suez and all other places, because merchants go to Basra from every direction, Cairo and Damascus and Bira and Aleppo, and by them it will be easy to know what is being done and what is intended, and the Arabs who live in Basra will also
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