Page:History of the Armenians in India.djvu/16

 mable value from a historical point of view, for they shed a flood of light on the history of the Company's all- important deputation to the Mogul Court at Delhi in 1715, in which Khojah Israel Sarhad, an Armenian merchant, played a prominent part, and by his tact and diplomacy succeeded in securing for the English the Grand Firman from the Emperor Ferokhsiyar.

I am also indebted to the Calcutta Review y from which some valuable extracts have been taken, and to the Englishman for its eulogistic reference to my fortunate discovery of the oldest Christian tomb in Calcutta. The other sources from which I have derived information have been duly acknowledged.

The sun seemed at last to shine upon my endeavours. I was fortunate in procuring a copy of the now comparatively rare Considerations on India Affairs by ** William Bolts, Merchant, and Alderman or Judge of the Hon'ble The Mayor's Court of Calcutta." This valuable work, which was published at London in 1772, contained much interesting information regarding the Armenians in Bengal, and several extracts from it have been reproduced here.

The dreadful tragedy enacted by the Turkish and Kurdish soldiery at Sassoon, Armenia, in the autumn of 1894, on defenceless Armenians, aroused the sympathy and shocked the feelings of the entire Christian world. The massacres and atrocities perpetrated were of so