IOR/L/PS/9/71/33

Dispatch No. 21 from the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, in camp near Tabreez [Tabriz], to the Secret Committee of the East India Company, of 20 August 1827, which was received from the Foreign Office on 8 October 1827. Macdonald Kinneir discusses the ongoing war between Russia and Persia [Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828], criticising the leadership of the Shah of Persia [Fatḥ-‘Alī Shāh Qājār] during the war and describing the ill-discipline of his troops and their ‘indiscriminate pillage’ of the province of Azerbijan [Azerbaijan]. He points to the opportunities missed by both Russia and Persia during the prosecution of the war, and indicates that he believes that Russia will be the eventual victor on account of the ‘deplorable weakness’ of the Persian Government. Macdonald Kinneir also gives an outline of the Russian forces in the southern Caucasus, giving approximate numbers of troops and their locations.

The letter originally enclosed the translation of a journal kept by the Persian envoy Meerza Saleh [Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī] and copies of Macdonald Kinneir’s dispatches Nos. 59 and 60 to the Chief Secretary to the Government of India, George Swinton (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/71/34-37).