IOR/L/PS/5/452, ff 292-302

This part of the volume consists of copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 106 of 1847, dated 30 December 1847. The enclosures are numbered 3-6 and are dated 21 to 28 December 1847.

The enclosures relate to the request from the Secretary of the Bombay Steam Fund Committee, John Smith, that the Government of Bombay forward a letter to HM Consul-General in Egypt, Charles Augustus Murray. The letter expresses the Committee’s desire for Murray to help in renewing the concession granted by Mahomed Ali [Muḥammad ‘Alī Pasha al-Mas‘ūd bin Āghā], Viceroy of Egypt, on 7 May 1838. The concession was originally for ten years and permitted the following: a free grant for the station houses erected by the Bombay Steam Fund in the desert between Cairo and Suez; the right for passengers travelling between England and India to transit through Egypt.

Enclosure No. 3 is a letter from John Smith to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Arthur Malet, with enclosed copies of: the letter from Smith to Murray; the concession of 7 May 1838 (in French); and a letter from Colonel Charles John Barnett, in his former role as HM Consul-General in Egypt, to Smith, dated 19 April 1845, stating that in the opinion of HM Government, the sale or surrender of the station houses to the Pacha [Pāshā] of Egypt would be very inexpedient from ‘a political and national point of view’.

Enclosure No. 4 is a minute by the Governor of Bombay concurred in by the Board, approving the Committee’s request.

Enclosure No. 5 is a letter from Malet to Murray, forwarding the letter from the Committee and recommending that he give such support to the request of the Committee as he is able to and he considers desirable.

Enclosure No. 6 is a letter from Malet to Smith, informing him that the letter to Murray will be sent by the next overland mail.