IOR/L/PS/5/395, ff 31-38

This item consists of two translated copies of a letter from the Imam of Muskat [Muscat], Saeed Seyed bin Sultan [Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sulṭān Āl Bū Sa‘īd], also spelled Syeed Saeed Bin Sooltan in this item] to Viscount Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated 1 May 1841, with enclosures.

The letter relates to the Imam’s concerns over activities of the French. He states that on his arrival at Zanzibar, he deputed a man to Noosbeh [Nosy Be] and to the Sucklabahs [Sakalava people] ‘to watch the proceedings of the French’. The enclosures consist of copies of the following: a letter from the French Consul who had come to Zanzibar to Khumis bin Oosman; two letters from Smekhoo [Tsiomeko, also spelled Smeekoo in this item], Queen of the Sukalavas, to the Imam of Muscat, and a copy of a treaty between Smeekoo, her Ambassador, and the Imam of Muscat, placing all the Sukalavas as subjects under the authority of the Imam of Muscat. The letters were enclosed in a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 49 of 1841, c 17 June 1841.