IOR/L/PS/5/490, ff 2-30

This item comprises enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee [Bombay Secret Letter], No. 1 dated 1 January 1857. The enclosures are dated 9 November-29 December 1856.

The papers relate to the conclusion of a treaty with the Habr Awul tribe [Habr Awwal, also spelled Habr Awel and Habr al Awul in this item] and the removal of the British blockade of Berbera. The blockade had been implemented following an attack by members of the Habr Awul tribe, in April 1855 at the port of Berbera, on Lieutenant Richard Burton’s Somaliland Expedition, during which Lieutenant William Stroyan was murdered and the party’s property ‘plundered’.

The papers notably include:

• A copy of the report to Brigadier William Marcus Coghlan, Political Resident, Aden, by Lieutenant Robert Lambert Playfair, Assistant Political Resident, Aden, describing his journey to Berbera on the HC [Honourable Company] Schooner Mahi, and negotiation of a treaty of peace with the Habr Awal Elders (ff 7-12)
• A copy of the ‘Articles of Peace and Friendship concluded between the Habr Awaal tribe of Somalies on the one part and Brigadier William Marcus Coghlan Political Resident at Aden in behalf of the Hon’ble East India Company, on the other’, signed on 7 November 1856 and listing the names of ten members of the tribe who put their marks to the treaty (f 13). This is followed by a copy of the treaty in Arabic (f 14)
• The Bombay Government Minutes, Resolutions and summary of the events leading up to and resulting from the attack. These documents notably mention: the large sum of compensation originally demanded by Coghlan for Burton’s party (15,000 rupees); the apprehension of an individual allegedly associated with the attack and his imprisonment on board the Mahi; particular approval of the Bombay Government of the treaty article requiring the Habr Awul to make all efforts to suppress the ‘slave trade’ in their country; and the alleged degree of Burton’s culpability for the attack.