IOR/F/4/2191/107339

The item consists of copies and extracts of correspondence cited in, or enclosed with, a Political Letter from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, 31 March 1847. A copy of this Political Letter can be found at IOR/F/4/2191/107336. Further enclosures can be found at IOR/F/4/2191/107340. The item is the fourth in a series of five items on the ‘slave trade’ [trade in enslaved people].

The item contains a letter from the Court of Directors to the Governor of Bombay, dated 18 November 1846. The letter contains comments and instructions related to:

• The recent engagement entered into by Her Majesty’s Government and Syud Sueed, Imaum of Muscat [Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sulṭān Āl Bū Sa‘īd, Imam of Muscat]
• The suggestion by Major Samuel Hennell, Resident in the Persian Gulf, to persuade the Courts of Persia [Iran] and Turkey [Ottoman Empire] to prohibit the ‘slave trade’ on the same basis as the agreement with the Imaum of Muscat, as a means of further suppressing the trade
• The discrepancy between the English and Arabic versions of the previous treaty signed by the Imaum and Captain Moresby, as highlighted by Captain Atkins Hamerton, Her Majesty’s Consul and Company Agent in the Dominions of the Imaum of Muscat.

The item also contains the correspondence sent out by the Government of Bombay in light of the Court’s comments and instructions, as well as a response to these instructions from Sir Robert Oliver, Superintendent of the Indian Navy.

The Court’s letter also communicates the views of Henry John Temple (Viscount Palmerston and Minister for Foreign Affairs) on the subject.

The title page of the item contains the following references: ‘Bombay Political Department’, ‘P.C. [Previous Communication] 5698, Draft 542/47, Vol: 4’, ‘Collection No. 1 of No. 47’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’.