IOR/L/PS/6/544, Coll 61/8

This item is a collection to India Political Despatch No. 61 of 23 August 1866, from the Secretary of State for India to the Government of India Foreign Department (the Political Despatch itself is not included in this item). The collection consists of papers forwarded with the Government of Bombay Political Despatch to the Secretary of State for India dated 23 May 1866 (received 25 June 1866), on the subject of Muscat and Persian [Iranian] affairs, including:

• Measures for the protection of the telegraph stations of Gwadur [Gwadar] and Mussendom [Musandam]
• Instructions of the Government of India regarding the attitude to be adopted towards the Sultan of Muscat, Syud Salim [Sayyid Sālim bin Thuwaynī Āl Bū Sa‘īd]
• The arrival of envoys from the Sultan of Muscat to the Government of Bombay
• The Government of Bombay suggesting the appointment of a Native Consular Agent at Muscat, for purely commercial purposes, in the absence of the Consul at Muscat, Colonel Herbert Frederick Disbrowe, who is compelled to proceed to Europe on account of ill health
• The arrival at Bunder Abbas [Bandar-e ‘Abbas, also spelled Bunder Abbass in this item] of a Persian Prince disputing the right of Muscat to the port of Gwadur and announcing the claim of Persia [Iran] to it
• The death of the Chief of Russool Khyma [Ra’s al-Khaymah], Sultan bin Suggur [Shaikh Sulṭān I bin Ṣaqr al-Qāsimī]
• The Resident in the Persian Gulf reporting the result of his recent proceedings at Soor [Sur]
• The Resident submitting some instances of complaints from the littoral of the Persian Gulf, and requesting that measures be adopted for the suppression of ‘piracy’ in the Gulf.

The papers consist of correspondence, dated 29 January to 21 May 1866, mostly between: the Resident in the Persian Gulf; the Government of Bombay; the Government of India; and the Political Agent at Muscat. The papers also include enclosed letters from British Indian subjects trading at Bunder Abbas, and letters of complaint to British representatives in the Persian Gulf.