IOR/R/15/1/157, ff 193-200

The letter and its enclosures relate to an additional engagement to the existing slave trade treaty signed by the British Government and various Arab coast rulers, obliging the rulers to do everything in their power to seize and deliver up to the British any slaves found to have been imported into their territories, and to place embargoes on vessels found to be importing slaves. A translation of the further engagement is appended to Jones’s letter (folios 197-98). A list of signatories is included in the margin of Jones’s letter (folio 193): the Shaikhs of Bahrain, Rusool Khymah [Ra’s al-Khaymah], Amulgavine [Umm al-Qaywayn], Debai [Dubai], Ejman [Ajman] and Aboothabee [Abu Dhabi]. The enagements were sealed during May 1856.

In addition to the announcement of the engagement, Jones’s letter is an assessment of resources in the Gulf for the suppression of the slave trade, and recommendations for how these could be improved. Points addressed include: the inadequate resources of the Persian Gulf’s ‘feeble’ squadron; the difficulties policing the Arab coast; the recommendation that the suppression of the slave trade to the Gulf should focus on the coastal region of Zanzibar and the islands of Socotra [Suquṭrā] and Maisierah [Maṣīrah]; the ‘neglected state’ of the naval station and slave depot at Bassadore.

As appended to Jones’s letter is the translation of a letter (folio 199) from Jones to Hajee Yacoob [Hajjī Jāsim], British Agent at Bahrain, dated 11 May 1856, with instructions relating to the new engagement, and the translated purport of a letter (folio 200) from Jones to the British Agent at Lingah [Bandar-e Lengeh], dated 17 May 1856, also with instructions relating to the new engagement, and instructions to inform all maritime traders of the British intention to despatch cruizers to patrol the waters around Zanzibar. A note at the end of this letter states that similar letters have been sent to the Agents at Shargah and Muscat.