IOR/L/PS/5/428, ff 250-257

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 21 of 1844, dated 29 February 1844. The enclosures are dated 8 December 1843-29 February 1844.

The enclosures comprise an explanation by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Taylor, Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq], as submitted to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay and forwarded to the Government of India, with regard to the complaints made against him and the Bagdad [Baghdad] agency by British merchants Messrs Hector & Co, on matters of trade.

Taylor defends the trading activities of the poorly paid native staff of the Agency and the firm Lynch & Co, which is the only competitor of Hector & Co in Bagdad. He also stresses that: he has no power to influence the 'proverbially slow' and 'often corrupt' processes of the local courts and public officials; the local inhabitants are understandably unhappy about European traders affecting their own profits and previous sources of gain; and that the Pacha [Pasha] of Bagdad is perfectly entitled to apply to any of the mercantile community for steam vessels or steam apparatus for his flotilla of ships to keep the peace in the seas.