IOR/F/4/2580/153766

This item consists of copies of correspondence, minutes, resolutions, reports, memoranda, and consultations cited in, or enclosed with, an extract of a Political Letter from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, 20 July 1854. The enclosures are dated 26 August 1853-July 1854. It is the second in a series of twelve items about the ‘slave trade’ [trade in enslaved people].

The main correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; Captain Sir Henry John Leeke, Commander in Chief of the Indian Navy; Augustus Smith Le Messurier, Advocate General, Bombay; Arthur King Corfield, Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay; Captain Arnold Burrowes Kemball, Resident in the Persian Gulf; Commodore George Robinson, Commanding Persian Gulf Squadron; William Acland, Company’s Solicitor; and Henry Young, Commissioner of Customs, Salt and Opium, Bombay [also referred to as Collector of Customs, Bombay].

The item concerns two ships, the Saiad [Sa‘īd] and the Futtel Mombarack [Fatḥ al-Mubārak; multiple spellings are present in the item], which were captured in the Gulf and are accused of carrying enslaved people. Preparations are made for bringing their cases to trial. These include:

• The sending of the Constance from the Gulf to bring the two captured ships to Bombay [Mumbai], and the need to ensure that the Persian Gulf Squadron is subsequently restored to its full strength
• The removal of the cargoes of the ships to a warehouse and the making out of an inventory
• The issuing of commissions to the Resident at Zanzibar and the Agent at Muscat for them to serve writs of monition on all persons with any interest in the captured ships and their cargoes
• Arrangements for the subsistence, pending the trial, of Ahmed Been Syed [Aḥmad bin Sayyid] and Syed Been Ahmed [Sayyid bin Aḥmad], the nacodas [nakhudas] of the two captured ships, in response to a petition sent on their behalf
• The repairs required to the captured ships
• The bounty to which officers of the Indian Navy may be entitled for the seizure of ships carrying enslaved people.

The item contains a table of contents (ff 586-591), and the title page (f 585) contains the following references: Draft Number ‘1045/54’, ‘Collection No. 2 of No. 49 of 1854’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’.