IOR/F/4/2550/149205

This item consists of copies of correspondence, minutes, and consultations cited in, or enclosed with, political letters from the Government of Bombay. These political letters appear in IOR/F/4/2550/149197. It is the ninth in a series of sixteen items on the Persian Gulf.

The correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; Henry Bartle Edward Frere, Commissioner in Sind [Sindh]; John MacLeod, Deputy Collector of Customs, Kurrachee [Karachi]; and Richard Spooner, Acting Collector of Customs, Bombay [Mumbai].

The item concerns a report of vessels arriving in Kurrachee from Arabian and Persian ports without the required documentation. This leads to a wider discussion about the existing regulations for ‘native vessels’ trading between the Persian Gulf and the western coast of British India, and the need to better enforce these. Reference is made to Article V of the General Treaty with the Arab Tribes of the Persian Gulf of 1820, and to a notification published by the Government of Bombay on 2 January 1835, both of which are reproduced on f 553.

Apart from the two reproductions mentioned above, the material in this file is dated 1852-1853.

The item contains a table of contents (f 550), and the title page (f 549) contains the following references: Draft Number ‘358 - 1854’, ‘Collection No. 10 of No. 84 of 1853. Vol. 9’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’. The collection number was originally given as ‘7’ but this has been crossed out and replaced with ‘10’.