IOR/F/4/2575/152552

The item consists of copies and extracts of correspondence and minutes, cited in, or enclosed with, a Political Letter from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, dated 28 April 1854, and found at IOR/F/4/2575/152543. It is the tenth in a series of thirteen items about the Persian Gulf.

The item contains a letter from Khojeh Hiskale [Khawājah Ḥizqīl bin Yūsuf], Agent at Muscat, to Captain Arnold Burrowes Kemball, Resident in the Persian Gulf, dated 19 October 1853. Khojeh Hiskale reports on his enquiries into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the wreck of a vessel belonging to Muscat, which was travelling to Zanzibar accompanied by two vessels from Rusulkhymah [Ra’s al-Khaymah, multiple renderings appear in text]. His report includes the statement of Humaid ben Kummoo Lootya [Ḥumayd bin Kāmū [?] Lūtāh], the owner of the Muscat vessel.

Kemball forwards the letter, alongside his own comments, to the Government of Bombay. He includes a theory that the incident was possibly a deliberate act by the nakhoda [nakhuda] of one of the Rusulkhymah vessels, in revenge for an earlier incident at Lamooh [Lamu?], which is a dependency of the Imam [Imām] of Muscat. In support of this theory, Kemball includes relevant correspondence between: himself; Major Atkins Hamerton, HM Consul and Company Agent in the Dominions of His Highness the Imam of Muscat; and Sheikh Sultan ben Suggur [Shaikh Sulṭān I bin Ṣaqr al-Qāsimī], 'Chief' [Shaikh] of Rusulkhymah.

The title page of the item contains the following references: 'Bombay Political Department', 'P.C. [Previous Communication] 8964', Draft Number '908 [18]54', 'Collection No. 1 of No. 32 of 1854', 'Vol: 10', and 'Examiner's Office'. Originally, the Collection number was given as '10' but this has been crossed out and replaced with '1'.