IOR/L/PS/5/450, ff 70-144

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 57 of 1847, dated 16 June 1847. The enclosures are dated 14 April-14 May 1847 (although some internal copy documents date back to 26 February 1847). (Note: the abstract erroneously dates the second enclosure 14 April 1847).

The primary documents are letters from Colonel Justin Sheil, HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Tehran, chiefly to the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, GCB, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Government of India, including copies of relevant correspondence.

Numerous major and minor political, diplomatic and commercial subjects are covered in this item illustrating: tensions between Persia [Iran] and Ottoman Turkey whilst treaty negotiations were taking place at Erzeroom [Erzurum, Anatolia] and the role of the British embassy at Tehran as a mediator; relations between Britain, Persia, Turkey, France and Russia; internal Persian politics; and Sheil’s representation of British interests and individuals in the Persian dominions. Matters notably covered are (in this order in the item):

• Controversy over the nationality of an Armenian named ‘Stepan’, employed by English merchants at Tabreez [Tabriz], previously nationalised as a Russian and unsuccessfully seeking Persian citizenship to avoid having to journey to Russia to renew his identity certificates
• Sheil’s impatience with the Persian Government’s delay in sending a new consul to Baghdad and using the British Consul, Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, as the representative of their interests there
• Persian indemnity claims against Turkey following events at Mohammera [Khorramshahr, formerly Mohammerah], Rewandooz [Rawanduz?] and Kerbella [Karbala]; tensions over Turkey relinquishing Mohammera but not some of the (Persian owned) lands around it; and British and Russian mediation to have claims of both sides dropped in treaty negotiations
• British and French commercial competition in relation to Persia, notably armaments sales, and British concerns about the Persian envoy to France stopping at the French Embassy in Constantinople [Istanbul] on his way back to Paris and ‘meddling’ in treaty negotiations
• Return to Tehran of the Governor of Khorassan, for certain criticized actions in the province; his rivalry with Persian Prime Minister Hajee Meerza Aghassee [Haji Mirza Aqasi] (who wants him banished); and his unsuccessful soliciting of Sheil’s public support
• Uncertainty surrounding the Shah’s purported plans to march an expedition against the ‘refractory’ Toorkoman people [Turkomans] in the region of Asterabad [Gorgan, formerly Astarabad] and Sheil’s advisory against it due to the remoteness of the region, the Shah’s poor health and because it could appear provocative to the Turkish authorities (the expedition did not take place)
• The Persian Prime Minister’s objections to a Turkish vessel of war anchoring at mouth of the Haffar estuary/canal ‘offensively’ close to Mohammera on the pretext of deterring ‘piracy’ and Sheil’s appeal to the Government of India to press the Turks to remove it as it impeded treaty negotiations at Erzeroom
• Persian complaints against a Turkish requirement that Persian travellers and pilgrims purchase a highly priced Turkish passports to visit the shrines in their dominions, when Russian Muslims are exempt from this tax
• Embarrassment caused to Sheil by the continued presence of Agha Khan Mehellatee [Hasan Ali Shah Mahallati] in Bombay under British protection and the Government of India’s delay in fulfilling the terms of an agreement with the Shah to settle the Agha Khan in Calcutta [Kolkata]; and news that the Agha Khan’s brother is warring against the Shah in Kerman using English guns
• The unsuccessful attempt of Sheil’s envoy to trace English captives in territory of the newly enthroned Khan of Khiva
• Complaints received by Sheil of monetary harassment of British merchants and seizing of their property in Sheeraz [Shiraz] by Persian authorities
• Sheil’s refusal to provide official protection to German missionaries, converted from Judaism to the Church of England (and sent by the London Missionary Society), arriving in Isfahan to convert Jewish people to Christianity, as it is against Shah’s laws to proselytize
• The Persian Government’s complaint regarding rumours that the Turks are constructing a fort on the right bank of the Shatt-ool-Arab [Shatt al-Arab] opposite Mohammera and British response that if they are it is probably in retaliation for Persia building forts near the Turkish frontier in Azerbijan [Azerbaijan]
• Fate of the medal of the Order of the Lion and Sun belonging to the late Persian Consul at Baghdad, and an embarrassing dispute between his executors and the French Consul General, Baron de Weimar, which drew in the involvement of the British Consul and the Pasha [Governor] of Baghdad
• Persian complaint regarding import and additional duties payable by Persian merchants in the Ottoman dominions and claims that they violate the convention of Balte Liman [Treaty of Balta Limani 1838]
• Sheil’s attempts to persuade the Shah to issue an edict outlawing the ‘traffic of slaves’ [enslaved persons] within his dominions, similar to the edict issued by the Ottoman Porte; the Shah’s refusal on the grounds that it is against Islamic law to prevent the possible conversion of ‘heathens’ from Africa to Islam; Sheil’s correspondence with the Persian Prime Minister who intimates the real reasons the Shah will not cave in to pressure are his annoyance with the British delays in sending the Agha Khan to Calcutta, for imprisoning of the Persian Consul in Bombay, and the protracted negotiations with Turkey at Erzeroom.