IOR/L/PS/9/71/21

Letter from the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, at the Royal Camp on the borders of the Lake of Shahee [Lake Urmia], to the Secret Committee of the East India Company, of 10 July 1827, which was received from the Foreign Office on 18 September 1827. The letter concerns the ongoing war between Russia and Persia [Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828], detailing the failure of the Russian siege of Erivan [Yerevan], and the subsequent movement of Russian troops, commanded by General Paskevitch [General Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich-Erivansky], to Nukshirvan [Nakhchivan]. The letter also reports: the onset of disease in the Russian army; the arrest of General Benkendoff [General Konstantin Khristoforovich Benkendorf] for his conduct in battle against the Persians (see IOR/L/PS/9/71/11); and the presence of the Archbishop of Tiflis [Tbilisi] in General Paskevitch’s camp, through whom Paskevitch is purportedly corresponding with the ‘principle Armenians’ in Persia and the adjacent provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

The letter originally enclosed copies of the following documents:

• Macdonald Kinneir’s dispatches Nos. 53 and 54 to the Chief Secretary to the Government of India, George Swinton (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/71/22-23)
• Correspondence between General Paskevitch and Macdonald Kinneir (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/71/24 and 27)
• A letter from General Paskevitch to Abbas Meerza [Crown Prince of Persia, ʿAbbās Mīrzā Qājār] (IOR/L/PS/9/71/25)
• A letter from Abbas Meerza to his Vizier (IOR/L/PS/9/71/26).