IOR/L/PS/9/71/51

Copy of dispatch No. 65 from the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, at the Royal Camp at Seraab [Sirab?], to the Chief Secretary to the Government of India, George Swinton, of 20 September 1827. Macdonald Kinneir details a disagreement between Abbas Meerza [ʿAbbās Mīrzā Qājār, Crown Prince of Persia] and the Shah of Persia [Fatḥ-‘Alī Shāh Qājār] concerning the ongoing war between Russia and Persia [Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828], resulting in the determination of the Shah to send Meerza Abul Hassan Khan [Mīrzā Abū al-Ḥasan Khān Shīrāzī, Foreign Minister of Persia] to London as an ambassador to discuss peace. Macdonald Kinneir discusses his audiences with the Shah and meetings with the Shah’s ministers on this subject, during which he sought to discourage the Shah from sending an envoy to London and made an agreement for a mission to be sent to Petersburgh [St Petersburg] instead. Macdonald Kinneir also discusses the Shah’s ‘ardent desire’ for peace and the financial and territorial concessions he might be willing to make to Russia, and the designs of and rivalry between the Shah’s ministers.

The letter originally enclosed related correspondence between Macdonald Kinneir and members of the Persian Government (now catalogued as IOR/L/PS/9/71/52-58).

This document was originally enclosed in Macdonald Kinneir’s letter to the Secret Committee of the East India Company of 22 September 1827 (IOR/L/PS/9/71/50).