IOR/L/PS/9/70/162

Copy of a letter from Major William Monteith to the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, of 24 November 1826. The letter concerns allegations made against Monteith by General Yermoloff [Governor-General of Georgia, General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov]. Monteith refutes the allegations that he had recently been commanding the Persian artillery, and that he had been acting as a spy in Georgia, and indicates that he does not know why Yermoloff has made the allegations. He explains that he had actually been on a mission to secure the release and safe passage of the mission of the Russian envoy, Prince Menchikoff [Prince Aleksandr Sergeevich Menshikov], out of Persia; that his erstwhile presence on the frontier between Russia and Persia had been to carry out a survey of the frontier; and that time that he had spent in Tiflis [Tbilisi] had been due to poor health.

Also included is a copy of a letter, in French, from Menchikoff to Monteith, of 27 September 1826, in which he offers his thanks for Monteith's assistance.

This document was originally enclosed, numbered 5 in enclosure No. 1, in Macdonald Kinneir’s letter to the Secret Committee of the East India Company of 23 December 1826 (IOR/L/PS/9/70/156).