Eventually, as a result of pressure and the refusal of the British Government to receive the Persian envoy to the Queen’s coronation, and other similar uncompromising measures, peace was more or less fully restored in 1841. But history proverbially repeats itself. Russian influences were at work, and by 1856 the Persian army, upon pretext of settling local quarrels, was once more in front of Herat, and subsequently captured it. This, with other petty annoyances too numerous to mention, led, in November of that year, to a definite declaration of war against the Shah. As early as July or August, 1856, instructions had been sent to the Governor-General of India to collect at Bombay an adequate force, with transport, to occupy, in the event of negotiations breaking down, the island of Karrack and the city and district of Bushire, the commercial capital of Persia. Says Captain Hunt, in his capital narrative of the Persian campaign which he himself went through with his regiment, the 78th Highlanders:--“Bushire is itself a place of much importance, and covers considerable ground. It is defended by a wall, and has no ditch. As a fortress it is inconsiderable--position and trade giving it all its value; and yet as a commercial town, none in the world has perhaps been oftener attacked.” Bushire, then, was the first objective of the British expedition, which, starting from Bunda Abbas in India, arrived in the Persian Gulf on the 29th November, 1856. Once in the roadstead, the British war vessels with their transports made so great a display of force that the Persian Governor of the town despatched a messenger to Commander Jones, the then British Resident, “begging to be apprised of the object of their visit.” Commander Jones’s reply, which was addressed from the Admiral’s flagship, conveyed to the unlucky Governor the scarcely welcome intelligence of the proclamation of war, and intimated that diplomatic relations were at an end. The next move on the part of the British force was the occupation of Karrack Island, to the north of the town, an operation which met with no opposition, and then on the morning of 7th December preparations were made to disembark the troops in Kallila Bay, some ten miles to the south of Bushire.