IOR/L/PS/9/70/193

Copy of dispatch No. 40 from the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, in Tabreez [Tabriz], to the Chief Secretary to the Supreme Government of India, George Swinton, of 15 March 1827. The letter originally enclosed letters concerning the passage of the Russian officer Noskoff [Ivan Fyodorovich Noskov] and Meerza Mohomed Ali [Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī] over the frontier between Persia and Russia (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/70/194-196); a letter from the former Russian Chargé d’Affaires to Persia, Mazarowitch [Semyon Mazarovich], to the Sirdar of Erivan [Sardar of Iravan or Yerevan] offering Russian protection (IOR/L/PS/9/70/197); a letter from the Governor-General of Georgia to the Sirdar of Erivan (IOR/L/PS/9/70/198); and correspondence between Macdonald Kinneir and the Sirdar of Erivan (IOR/L/PS/9/70/199-200). In the letter, Macdonald Kinneir reports that the Russian armies in Georgia and Karabaug [Karabakh] have gone into winter quarters, and his expectation that hostilities between Russia and Persia should resume in May or June. He also details the secret deal between Abbas Meerza [Crown Prince of Persia, ʿAbbās Mīrzā Qājār] and the Pasha of Erzeroon [Erzurum] for the supply of military stores to Persia, and the apprehensions of the ‘Turks’ [Ottomans] at the possibility of the Russian capture of Erivan.

This document was originally enclosed in Macdonald Kinneir’s letter to the Secret Committee of the East India Company of 23 March 1827 (IOR/L/PS/9/70/192).