IOR/L/PS/9/68

Letters and enclosures received by the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company concerning the relations of the United Kingdom and the Supreme Government of India with Qājār Persia [Iran] between 1809 and 1820. The majority of the letters sent to the Secret Committee are from the British envoys to Persia for this period: Sir Harford Jones, John Malcolm, Sir Gore Ouseley, Henry Ellis and James Morier, and Henry Willock.

A key theme in this file is the emergence of Persia as significant to the strategic defence of India in the context of the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815), catalysed by the Franco-Persian alliance against Russia and Britain between 1807 and 1809. Persia’s relations with France, and Britain’s associated efforts to exert its own influence in Persia are a key focus, and this file details Britain’s efforts to secure and re-negotiate treaty relations with Persia.

Persia’s war with Russia between 1804 and 1813, with the attendant concerns of Britain’s relations with Russia as an ally against Napoleon, is also a related focus, and this file details British military and financial assistance to Persia in its war against Russia and Britain’s role in concluding the Treaty of Gulistan between Russia and Persia in 1813.

Britain’s efforts to exert military and political dominance in the Persian Gulf, by way of conflict with so-called ‘pirates’ operating from shores of the Gulf, is also a key theme in this file, which details Britain’s Persian Gulf Campaign of 1819. The file contains details of the campaign and the subsequent treaties signed with Arab rulers on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, and Britain’s relations with the Imam of Muscat and the Persian authorities responsible for Persia’s Gulf littoral.

Also included in this file are Persia’s relations with its other neighbours, detailing internal conflict in Afghanistan and relations with the Ottoman Empire, particularly the Pashalik of Baghdad.