IOR/G/17/2

The volumes contain papers relating to the East India Company’s factory at Mocha.

The papers include letters, primarily from the Mocha Factory to the Company’s Court of Directors, but also including copies of correspondence between the Mocha Factory and the Bombay Factory, to which it was subordinate, and copies of correspondence between various of the Company’s agents at Mocha, Beetlefuckee [Bayt al Faqih], and on board EIC ships.

The papers also include accounts, primarily related to the Company’s purchases of coffee at Mocha and Beetlefuckee or accounts of individual EIC ships, but also including accounts related to the trade in iron, steel, aloes and other goods, and the transport of bullion.

Other documents include: a firman from the Imam [Imām] of Mocha granting trading rights in his dominions to the East India Company (folios 19-20); invoices and receipts; lists of ships arriving at Mocha; manifests of private trade carried by EIC ships; lists of papers sent from Mocha to the Court of Directors; and lists of gifts given to the Governor of Mocha and other officials.

Folios 57-70 relate to the sinking of the EIC ship Barrington at the entrance to the harbour at Bombay [Mumbai] in September 1730, and efforts to salvage the cargo.

The papers were sent by ship to the Court of Directors in London, and most of the papers are endorsed with the title of the document, the number of the document, the name of the ship it was received by, and the date it was received by the Court of Directors.