British
Consul at Constantinople, dedicated to the Diplomatic or Consular
service in Eastern Europe or in Asia. His Persian experience began when
at the age of twenty-eight he accompanied Sir Harford Jones as private
secretary, in 1808-1809, on that mission from the British Court
direct which excited the bitter jealousy and provoked the undignified
recriminations of the Indian Government. After the Treaty had been
concluded, James Morier returned to England, being accompanied by the
Persian envoy to the Court of St. James, who figures in this narrative
as Mirza Firouz, and whose droll experiences in this country he
subsequently related in the volume entitled "Hajji Baba in England."
While at home, Morier wrote the first of the two works upon Persia, and
his journeys and experiences in and about that country, which, together
with the writings of Sir John Malcolm, and the later publications of Sir
W. Ouseley, Sir R. Ker Porter, and J. Baillie Frazer, familiarised the
cultivated Englishman of the first quarter of this century with
Persian history and habits to a degree far beyond that enjoyed by the
corresponding Englishman of the present day. Returning to Persia with
Sir Gore Ouseley in 1811-12 to assist the latter in the negotiation of a
fresh Treaty, to meet the novel situation of a Franco-Russian alliance,
Morier remained in Tehran as _charge d'affaire_ after his chief had
left, and in 1814 rendered similar aid to Sir H. Ellis in the conclusion
of a still further Treaty superseding that of Ouseley, which had never
been ratified. After his return to England in 1815, appeared the account
of his second journey. Finally, nearly ten years later, there was issued
in 1824 the ripened product of his Persian experiences and reflections
in the shape of the inimitable story to which is prefixed this
introduction. "Hajji Baba" at once became a favourite of the cultured
reading public, and passed speedily through several editions. That
popularity has never since been exhausted; and the constant demand for a
new issue is a proof not merely of the intrinsic merit of the book as
a contemporary portrait of Persian manners and life, but also of
the fidelity with which it continues to reflect, after the lapse of
three-quarters of a century, the salient and unchanging characteristics
of a singularly unchanging Oriental people. Its author, having left the
Diplomatic service, died in 1849. The celebrity of the family name has,
however, been