IOR/L/PS/9/76/39

Copies of three letters from Harford Jones, newly appointed Resident in Bagdad [Baghdad], sent from Vienna and Constantinople [Istanbul] en route to Bagdad in July-August 1798:

1. A letter to Jacob Bosanquet, Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, sent from Vienna and dated 25 July 1798. The letter concerns Jones’s meeting with Sir Morton Eden, British Minister in Vienna, and information concerning the British and French fleets in the Mediterranean.

2. A letter to Commodore John Blankett or the commanding officer of any British ship at Muscat, sent from Constantinople and dated 18 August 1798. The letter reports on the invasion of Egypt by French forces and the reaction of the Porte [Government of the Ottoman Empire], which has reportedly issued orders to ports in the Red Sea to assist British ships.

3. A letter to Robert Abbott, East India Company Agent in Aleppo, sent from Constantinople and dated 18 August 1798. The letter informs Abbott of Jones’s appointment as Resident in Bagdad and asks for information regarding: the surplus of grain in Syria; roads from Latichia [Latakia], Alexandretta [İskenderun], and Tripoli to Aleppo and the Euphrates; the navigability of these ports; local tribes and their leaders; and the disposition of the population towards France, with a view to assessing the threat of a French force reaching the Euphrates via Syria.