Percy Cox was engrossed with events in Europe. Among his other achievements while at Bushire was the establishment of the state of Kuwait as an autonomous kaza within the Ottoman Empire by the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, where he improved relations with local ruler, Mubarak, by opening negotiations with Ibn Saud. The Turks signed a treaty in London on July 29, 1913 concerning Royal Navy patrols in the Persian Gulf littoral, when Cox met then at the Port of Uqair on 15 December 1913. Cox noted their "intractability" and also warned the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about Ibn Saud; the "increased authority
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire in particular suffered from heavy competition, and its commercial presence declined significantly, particularly after 1645, when the Ottomans and Venetians went to war over Crete. The English were by far the most successful European merchants in the empire during the seventeenth century, and they benefited from friendly relations between the two states. The Ottomans exported raw silk and imported cheap woolen cloth, as well as tin necessary for the production of military armaments. While in 1550 the Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state in which all power was held exclusively by the sultan, by 1700 it had experienced a political