IOR/L/PS/9/71/261

Extracts from the private journal of the East India Company Envoy to Persia [Iran], Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald Kinneir, from 17 December 1827 to 27 March 1828. The journal covers the period of the negotiations for the peace treaty signed at Toorkomanchaee [Treaty of Turkamanchay] in February 1828, which ended the war between Russia and Persia [Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828]. Macdonald Kinneir details his involvement in the negotiations, which took place primarily at Dehkarghan [Azarshahr] and Toorkomanchaee, including his conferences, discussions and communications with the key negotiators, including the Russian Commander-in-Chief, General Paskewitch [General Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich-Erivansky, Governor-General of Georgia], Abbas Mirza [ʿAbbās Mīrzā Qājār, Crown Prince of Persia], and the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Meerza Abul Hassan Khan [Mīrzā Abū al-Ḥasan Khān Shīrāzī]. Macdonald Kinneir gives a detailed account of the events in the lead up to and aftermath of the conclusion of the treaty, including:

• The negotiations concerning the reparations to be paid by Persia to Russia, and the delays to the delivery of the money
• Russian threats to resume the war owing to mistrust caused by delays to the delivery of the reparations
• The breaking off of negotiations at Dehkarghan and resumption of negotiations at Toorkomanchaee
• The signing of the treaty
• The agreement between Macdonald Kinneir and Abbas Mirza for the abrogation of the third and fourth articles of the Definitive Treaty between Britain and Persia in return for 200,000 tomans from Britain
• The withdrawal of Russian troops from the Province of Azerbijaun [Azerbaijan] and the return of Abbas Mirza to Tabriz.

Also included in the journal are copies of the following communications:

• Letter from Captain Ronald Dugald Harcourt Macdonald to Macdonald Kinneir, ff 12-13
• Written pledge, in French, from the Russian agent Prince Kondacheff guaranteeing the safety of reparations payments, ff 22
• Letter, in French, from General Paskewitch to Macdonald Kinneir, ff 33-34.

This document was originally enclosed, in No. 93, in Macdonald Kinneir’s dispatch No. 34 to the Secret Committee of the East India Company of 28 March 1828 (IOR/L/PS/9/71/253).