IOR/F/4/2320/120372

The item consists of copies and extracts of correspondence, minutes and resolutions, cited in, or enclosed with, extracts from a Political Letter from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, 23 June 1849.

The item relates to expenses incurred by Lieutenant Gardner, Commanding the Company ship, Mahi, and by Stafford Bettesworth Haines, Captain in the Indian Navy and Political Agent at Aden. Gardner’s expenses relate to the hosting of the Ameer of Mocha, Ameer Futteh Mahomed [Amīr Fatḥ Muḥammad, also rendered in text as Futta Mahomed], onboard the Mahi whilst the town of Mocha was under siege by the Imaum of Senna [Imām of Sanʻa]. Haines’s expenses relate to the hosting of Ameer Futteh Mahomed and Sheik Cassim ibn Hoossain ibn Jyah [Shaikh Qasīm bin Ḥusayn bin Jiyāh(?)], as well as their entourages, at Aden in July and August 1848. Haines also claims expenses for employing an interpreter, Moonshi Hussain [Munshi Ḥusayn], onboard the Company vessels Mahi, Euphrates, and Tigris, during the siege of Mocha.

The item also contains discussions about who should pay the expenses and how much should be paid, as well as the instruction that Haines should reduce his spending on such expenses in future.

Correspondents include: Commodore John Croft Hawkins, Superintendent of the Indian Navy; Lieutenant-Colonel George Moore, Military Auditor General; Edward Eden Elliot, Civil Auditor; Haines; and the Government of Bombay. There is a mistake on folio 302 verso, where a letter has been attributed to ‘S B Hennell’ instead of ‘S B Haines’.

The title page of the item contains the following references: ‘Bombay Political Department’, ‘Draft No. 714/49’, ‘Collection No. 1 of No. 56’, and ‘Examiner’s Office’. The collection number was originally ‘2’, but this has been crossed out and replaced with ‘1’.