Problem: Background: Hasan ibn Ali ibn Muhammad (c. 846 - 874) was the 11th Imam of Twelver Shia Islam, after his father Ali al-Hadi. He was also called Abu Muhammad and Ibn al-Ridha. Because Samarra, the city where he lived, was a garrison town, he is generally known as al-Askari (Askar is the word for military in Arabic). Al-Askari married Narjis Khatun and was kept under house arrest or in prison for most of his life, until, according to some Shia sources, he was poisoned at the age of 28 on the orders of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tamid and was buried in Samarra.
Context: Various legends relate to al-Askari's wife, Narjis Khatun (the mother of the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi). It is said that al-Askari's father, Ali al-Hadi, wrote a letter in the script of Rum; put it in a red purse, with 220 Dinars; and gave it to his friend Bashar ibn Sulaiman. The letter instructed him to go to Baghdad, to a ferry place on the river where the boats from Syria were unloaded, and female slaves were sold. Bashar was told to look out for a shipowner named Amr ibn Yazid, who had a slave girl who would call out in the language of Rum: "Even if you have wealth and the glory of Solomon the son of David, I can never have affection for you, so take care lest you waste your money." And that if a buyer approached her, she would say "Cursed be the man who unveils my eyebrow!" Her owner would then protest, "But what recourse do I have I; I am compelled to sell you?" "You will then hear the slave answer", said the Imam, "Why this hast, let me choose my purchaser, that my heart may accept him in confidence and gratitude." Bashar gave the letter, as he was instructed, to the slave girl; who read it, and was not able to keep from crying afterward. Then she said to Amr ibn Yezid, "Sell me to the writer of this letter, for if you refuse I will surely kill myself." "I therefore talked over the price with Amr until we agreed on the 220 Dinars my master had given me," said Bashar. On her way to Samarra, the slave girl would kiss the letter and rub it to her face and body; and when asked by Bashar why she did so despite not knowing the writer of the letter, she said, "May the offspring of the Prophet dispel your doubts!" Later on, however, she gave a full description of the dream she had had, and how she had escaped from her father's palace. A lengthier version of this story is recorded in Donaldson's book, along with further discussion on the authenticity of this story. Some Shia sources have recorded her as being a "Roman (i.e. Byzantine) princess" who pretended to be a slave so that she might travel from her kingdom to Arabia. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, in the Encyclopedia of Iranica, suggests that the last version is "undoubtedly legendary and hagiographic".
Question: and what was Bashar supposed to do there?
Answer: Bashar was told to look out for a shipowner named Amr ibn Yazid, who had a slave girl who would call out in the language of Rum: "

Problem: Background: Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, (3 February 1830 - 22 August 1903), styled Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until April 1868, was a British statesman of the Conservative Party, serving as Prime Minister three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was the last Prime Minister to head his full administration from the House of Lords. Lord Robert Cecil was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government from 1866 until his resignation in 1867 over its introduction of Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill that extended the suffrage to working-class men. In 1868 upon the death of his father, Cecil was elevated to the House of Lords.
Context: Lord Robert Cecil was born at Hatfield House, the second son of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and Frances Mary Gascoyne. He was a patrilineal descendant of Lord Burghley and the 1st Earl of Salisbury, chief ministers of Elizabeth I. The family owned vast rural estates in Hertfordshire and Dorset. This wealth increased sharply in 1821, when he married the rich heiress of a merchant prince who had bought up large estates in Essex and Lancashire. Robert had a miserable childhood, with few friends; he filled his time with reading. He was bullied unmercifully at the schools he attended. In 1840, he went to Eton College, where he did well in French, German, Classics, and Theology; however, he left in 1845 because of intense bullying. The unhappy schooling shaped his pessimistic outlook on life and his negative views on democracy. He decided that most people were cowardly and cruel, and that the mob would run roughshod over sensitive individuals. In December 1847 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he received an honorary fourth class in mathematics conferred by nobleman's privilege due to ill health. Whilst at Oxford he found the Oxford movement or "Tractarianism" to be an intoxicating force; he had an intense religious experience that shaped his life. In April 1850 he joined Lincoln's Inn but subsequently did not enjoy law. His doctor advised him to travel for his health, and so in July 1851 to May 1853 Cecil travelled through Cape Colony, Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand. He disliked the Boers and wrote that free institutions and self-government could not be granted to the Cape Colony because the Boers outnumbered the British three-to-one, and "it will simply be delivering us over bound hand and foot into the power of the Dutch, who hate us as much as a conquered people can hate their conquerors". He found the Kaffirs "a fine set of men - whose language bears traces of a very high former civilisation", similar to Italian. They were "an intellectual race, with great firmness and fixedness of will" but "horribly immoral" as they lacked theism. In the Bendigo goldmine of Australia, he claimed that "there is not half as much crime or insubordination as there would be in an English town of the same wealth and population". Ten thousand miners were policed by four men armed with carbines, and at Mount Alexander 30,000 people were protected by 200 policemen, with over 30,000 ounces of gold mined per week. He believed that there was "generally far more civility than I should be likely to find in the good town of Hatfield" and claimed this was due to "the government was that of the Queen, not of the mob; from above, not from below. Holding from a supposed right (whether real or not, no matter)" and from "the People the source of all legitimate power," Cecil said of the Maori of New Zealand: "The natives seem when they have converted to make much better Christians than the white man". A Maori chief offered Cecil five acres near Auckland, which he declined.
Question: How did this affect him?
Answer:
He decided that most people were cowardly and cruel, and that the mob would run roughshod over sensitive individuals.