IOR/L/PS/9/70/222

Letter from the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, in Tabreez [Tabriz], to the Secret Committee of the East India Company, of 8 May 1827, which was received from the Foreign Office on 9 July 1827. In the letter, Macdonald Kinneir reports an audience with the Prince Royal of Persia, Abbas Meerza [Crown Prince of Persia, ʿAbbās Mīrzā Qājār], held whilst Russian armies are reportedly marching on the frontier with Persia. During the audience the Prince Royal requests that the British supply the Persians with a subsidy as stipulated by Anglo-Persian treaty relations, which Macdonald Kinneir denies on the basis that Persia opened hostilities against Russia [Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828]. The letter details the Prince Royal’s response to this refusal, in which he: indicates that Persia was responding to sustained Russian aggression on the frontier between Russia and Persia; argues that Persia has the right to defend its territorial integrity; and expresses his frustration at perceived failures by the British to uphold their treaty obligations to Persia. Macdonald Kinneir also reports that he dissuaded the Prince Royal from dispatching an envoy to London, and expresses his concern that failure by the British Government to intercede on Persia’s behalf in the crisis would pose a risk to British influence in Persia.

The letter originally enclosed letters from the Prince Royal to the President of the Board of Control, Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, and to the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, forwarded at the request of the Prince Royal (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/70/223-224).