delegation and took them as his guests with him to Isfahan, his new capital. Soon, the Shirley brothers were appointed by the Shah to organize and modernize the royal cavalry and train the army (most notably the elite "Ghulam" slave soldiers, consisting of en masse deported and imported Circassians, Georgians, and Armenians and other Caucasians by the Shahs). The effects of these modernizations proved to be highly successful, as from then on the Safavids proved to be an equal force against their arch rival, immediately crushing them in the first war to come (Ottoman–Safavid War (1603–1618)) and all other Safavid wars to come. Many more events followed, including the debut of the British East India Company into Persia, and the establishment of trade routes for silk though Jask in the Strait of Hormuz in 1616. It was from here where the likes of Sir John Malcolm later gained influence into the Qajarid throne. Qajar era Anglo-Persian relations picked up momentum as a weakened Safavid empire, after the short-lived revival by the military genius Nader Shah (r. 1736-1747), eventually gave way to the Qajarid dynasty, which was quickly absorbed into domestic turmoil and rivalry, while competing colonial powers rapidly sought a stable foothold in the region. While the Portuguese, British, and Dutch, competed for the south and southeast of Persia in the Persian Gulf, Imperial Russia was largely left unchallenged in the north as it plunged southward to establish dominance in Persia's northern territories. Plagued with internal politics and incompetence, the Qajarid government found itself fast after their ascendancy incapable of rising to the numerous complex foreign political challenges at the doorsteps of Persia. During the monarchy of Fath Ali Shah, Sir John Malcolm, Sir Harford Jones-Brydges, 1st Baronet, Allen Lindsay, Henry Pottinger, Charles Christie, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Harold Nicolson, Sir John McNeill, Edmund Ironside, and James Morier were some of the British elite closely involved with Persian politics. Allen Lindsay was even appointed as a general in Abbas Mirza's army. A weakened and bankrupted royal court under Fath Ali Shah was forced to sign the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, followed by the Treaty of Turkmenchay after efforts by Abbas Mirza failed to secure Persia's northern front against Imperial Russia. The treaties were prepared by the Sir Gore Ouseley with the aid of the British Foreign Office in London. Sir Gore Ouseley was the younger brother of the British orientalist