IOR/L/PS/5/490, ff 225-250

This item comprises one enclosure to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee [Bombay Secret Letter], No. 15 dated 27 January 1857. The enclosure is dated 27 January 1857.

The enclosure comprises despatches, dated 9-23 December 1856, of Charles A Murray, HM Envoy in Persia [Iran] (located in Baghdad at this time), for the attention of the Earl of Clarendon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. A number of Murray’s despatches enclose translated extracts of the Tehran Gazette, 6 and 27 November, which Murray summarizes and provides his opinion on in his covering letters to Clarendon.

The papers notably cover the following matters:

• The capture and occupation of Herat by Persian forces, including the Persian Government’s claims to have been preventing Dost Mahomed Khan [Dūst Muḥammad Khān Bārakzay] from taking the city in collusion with Colonel Esau Khan [Colonel ‘Īsá Khān, an Alakuzā'ī chief of Herat and nephew of Dost Mahomed], and proposing to give up Herat on condition that the three principalities – Candahar [Kandahar], Afghanistan and Herat - remain independent of each other and subservient to Persia
• The extensive power and ‘nepotism’ of the Persian Sedr Azim [Mīrzā Āqā Khān Nūrī, Ṣadr-i Aʿẓam, Eʿtemād al-Dawlah], including the appointment of his ‘21 or 22 years of age’ son as Persian Minister at War (ff 245-246)
• The lavish welcome receptions granted to the French minister Prosper Bourée at Tabreez [Tabriz], and to Count Arthur de Gobineau, French Chargé d’Affaires at Tehran
• The withdrawal from Persia of the British Consul in Tehran, Richard White Stevens, and Persian allegations of Stevens’s ‘duplicitous’ departure and the debts owed to Persian citizens by his brother
• Intelligence forwarded by Murray from reports of unverified conversations of the Persian Consul in Baghdad, including claims that the Persian Government is sending large reinforcements to Mohamrah [Khorramshahr, formerly Mohammerah] and to Herat (to facilitate a march on Candahar), and claims that an agent of Russia is being sent to Herat
• A pro-Persian story published in a Belgian newspaper alleging that the Persian Government desires friendship with the British Government, and blaming the deterioration of relations between the two governments on the actions of British representatives in the region.