IOR/L/PS/9/70/55

Copy of dispatch No. 24 from HM Chargé d’Affaires to Persia [Iran], Henry Willock, in Tehran, to HM Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, George Canning, of 28 November 1825. The letter concerns the ongoing frontier dispute between Russia and Persia regarding land bordering on the lake of Gokcheh [Lake Sevan], where a force of Russian soldiers have re-occupied a contested position, detailing:

• The Russian justification for the occupation on the grounds of an unratified agreement made at Tiflis [Tbilisi]
• The Persian desire for Great Britain to mediate in the dispute
• The Persian plan to send an embassy to St Petersburgh [St Petersburg]
• The hopes of the Prince Royal [Crown Prince of Persia, 'Abbās Mīrzā Qājār] for receiving a subsidy from the British
• The complaints of the Prince Royal concerning the tone of communications from the Governor-General of Georgia, General Yermoloff [Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov] (see IOR/L/PS/9/70/56)
• The Prince Royal’s hope for assistance in the dispute from the new East India Company Envoy to Persia, Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir.

The letter also originally enclosed instructions from the Prince Royal and the Shah of Persia, [Fath-‘Ali Shāh Qājār], to the Persian envoy being sent to Tiflis to discuss the frontier dispute, Meerza Saudik [Mirza Muhammad Sadiq Marvazi] (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/70/57). Also originally enclosed was correspondence concerning the dispute (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/70/56, 58-59).

This document was originally enclosed in Willock’s letter to the Secret Committee of the East India Company of 3 December 1825 (IOR/L/PS/9/70/50).