IOR/L/PS/5/450, ff 241-263

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 65 of 1847, dated 19 July 1847. The enclosures are dated 26 June-17 July 1847.

The primary documents are minutes and resolutions of the Governor in Council, and letters from Arthur Malet, Secretary to the Government, Bombay, to the senior British residents, consuls and naval officials in the Persian Gulf and Persia [Iran] and to Henry Miers Elliot, Secretary to the Government of India with the Governor-General.

The subject matter covered is the following: the success of Major Samuel Hennell, the Resident in the Persian Gulf, in obtaining the agreement of the Arab Maritime chiefs to co-operate in the abolition of the trade in enslaved people; powers designated to the East India Company’s cruisers to seize and confiscate ships found to be carrying ‘slave cargo’; approbation of the Governor-General for Hennell’s achievement; arrangement of letters and presents from the Governor-General to the Arab Maritime Chiefs to acknowledge their ‘sacrifice’ and forwarding of the news to the Colonel Justin Sheil, HM Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Persia, in the hope he can persuade the authorities there to do likewise.