IOR/F/4/2657/175371

This item consists of copies of correspondence, resolutions, and consultations cited in, or enclosed with, extracts of Political Letters from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, 18 March 1856. The enclosures are dated 10 October 1855-19 February 1856. It is the fifth in a series of six items about the ‘slave trade’ [trade in enslaved people].

The correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; William Crawford, Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay [Mumbai]; Lieutenant Frederic Erskine Manners, Commanding Company Sloop of War Clive; Lawford Acland, Officiating Company Solicitor, Bombay; William Howard, Acting Advocate General, Bombay; Hiskiel bin Yusoof [Ḥizqīl bin Yūsuf], Acting Native Agent at Muscat; Rear Admiral Sir Henry John Leeke, Commander in Chief of the Indian Navy; and John Pares Bickersteth, Company Solicitor.

The item concerns a vessel, Futel-el-Barie [Fatḥ al-Bārī, multiple spellings are present in the item], which was captured off Muscat by Lieutenant Manners and found to be carrying seven enslaved people. The vessel, with the crew, enslaved people, and cargo, is subsequently taken to Bombay. Investigations are then carried out, and it is finally concluded that, as it is a Turkish [Ottoman] vessel, the Vice Admiralty Court at Bombay does not have authority to prosecute it for engaging in the ‘slave trade’, and so it is released. The enslaved people, however, are granted their freedom and opt to remain in Bombay.

The item includes accounts of interviews with the nacodah [nakhuda] of the vessel, three of the crew, and the seven enslaved people.

The item contains a table of contents (ff 193-196), and the title page (f 192) contains the following references: Draft Number ‘1445- /56’, ‘Collection No. 3 of No. 27 of 1856’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’. The collection number was originally given as ‘4’ but this has been crossed out and replaced with ‘3’.