IOR/L/PS/5/452, ff 303-470

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 107 of 1847, dated 31 December 1847. The enclosures relate to British attempts to suppress the 'slave trade' [trade in enslaved people]. They are numbered 3-91 and are dated 11 September to 30 December 1847.

The enclosures consist of correspondence, and minutes, resolutions and memoranda of the Government of Bombay. The enclosures also include: an enclosed copy of the treaty between the Queen of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria, and the Sultan of Maskat [Muscat], Saud Saud bin Sultan [Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sulṭān Āl Bū Sa‘īd, also written as Syud Sueed in this item], for the termination of the export of enslaved persons from the African dominions of the Sultan of Muscat, dated 2 October 1845 (in enclosure No. 3); and enclosed depositions of ‘liberated’ enslaved African people (in enclosure No. 37).

The enclosures concern matters including:

• The Resident in the Persian Gulf, Major Samuel Hennell, reporting the arrival at Bushire [Bushehr] Harbour of a bugla [baghlah] belonging to a subject of the Imaum [Imam, or Sultan] of Muscat, with ‘some 30 or 40 Negro and Abyssinian slaves’ [Black African and Ethiopian enslaved persons] on board for sale
• The recommendation of the Superintendent of the Indian Navy, Commodore Sir Robert Oliver, that the ‘Arabs’ on board buglas detained in Bombay Harbour, which had been captured in the Persian Gulf and found to be carrying enslaved persons, should be allowed a supply of tobacco and coffee
• The Government of Bombay authorising the Superintendent of the Indian Navy to release the buggalows [baghlahs] seized with enslaved persons on board, currently detained in Bombay Harbour, but directing him to warn the nackodas [nakhudas, also spelled naquodahs and in various other ways in this item] that any subsequent infractions of the treaty with the Sultan of Muscat would not be met with leniency
• The Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay, Gregor Grant, reporting that what appears to be smallpox has broken out amongst some of the formerly enslaved persons currently on board the police hulk Zenobia
• The opinion of the Advocate General, Bombay, A S Le Messurier, on the inability of Government to enforce the treaty concluded with the Sultan of Muscat
• Instructions issued by the Government of Bombay to the Political Agent at Aden, Captain Stafford Bettesworth Haines, and the Superintendent of the Indian Navy, as to the course they should pursue in regard to vessels seized with enslaved persons on board
• The preparation of a letter from the Governor of Bombay to the Imaum of Muscat, congratulating him on the seizure by British officers of enslaved persons on board vessels belonging to his subjects, who were acting in contravention of his orders and the treaty concluded between the two governments
• The Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay, forwarding the depositions of forty-seven girls and women and twelve boys. Grant writes that these fifty nine individuals are: the ‘slaves recently liberated’; two women whom he is satisfied are the wives of two of the naquodahs, to whom they have been returned; and two boys who state that they were not enslaved and are anxious to return to the vessel from which they were taken. Most of these girls, women and boys, Grant states (with the exception of three or four individuals, who appear to be natives of Zanzibar), appear to be ‘Gallas’ [Oromo people] or ‘Abyssinians’
• The question of how the formerly enslaved persons should be ‘disposed of’, with the Government of Bombay instructing the Senior Magistrate of Police that as many boys as the Superintendent of the Indian Navy wishes to take should be made over to him for care and naval education, and that if he does not take all of them, then the remainder may go to the polytechnic institution on similar terms, and that the best mode of providing for the girls and women will be for the Senior Magistrate of Police to invite applications from ‘respectable persons’ to ‘entertain’ them as servants, with preference being given to Christian families
• A letter from the Governor of Muscat, Syud Thoenee bin Sueed bin Sultan [Sayyid Thuwaynī bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd], to the Governor of Bombay, requesting the release of the buggalows seized for having enslaved persons on board
• The Superintendent of the Indian Navy requesting the sanction of the Government of Bombay for the bugalows detained in Bombay Harbour being allowed to depart without paying harbour dues
• A letter from the President of the Diocesan Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Corresponding Committee of the Church Missionary Society, the Bishop of Bombay, Thomas Carr, to the Governor of Bombay, submitting an offer from the Committee to take the formerly enslaved persons and have them educated as Christians and provide for ‘their disposal in life’
• A letter from Mahomed bin Alli [Muḥammad bin ‘Alī, also spelled Mahomed bin Ally in this item], an ‘Arab inhabitant of Bombay’, to the Governor of Bombay, requesting that the formerly enslaved persons be made over to himself, for him to ‘entertain’ them at his own expense for charity, for as long they like, and for him to undertake to marry the grown up young women with whoever they may like, and to allow the rest to go where they may please
• The Senior Magistrate of Police reporting that: all the formerly enslaved boys have been made over to the Superintendent of the Indian Navy; the Senior Magistrate invited applications from ‘respectable families’ to house the girls as servants; there were a great many applicants, mostly ‘Mahomedans’ [Muslims], ‘with a few respectable Portuguese Gentlemen’; but only one of the women was persuaded to take service with one of the Portuguese men, whilst the rest refused to be taken in by Christian families; and he ultimately persuaded ‘the greater number of the girls’ to accompany ‘some respectable Mahomedan Gentlemen’ to their houses
• The Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf, Captain William Lowe, pointing out the inadequacy of the force in that station for the complete suppression of the ‘slave trade’, and the Superintendent of the Indian Navy reporting that he is unable to increase the naval force on the Persian Gulf station, due to the limited number of vessels of war at his disposal
• The Resident in the Persian Gulf reporting the arrival of articles sent from Bombay by HMS Cruizer, but requesting to be provided with a bullet mould and a supply of scarlet cloth, for him to give as presents to ‘Arabian Chiefs’
• The Resident in the Persian Gulf reporting: his observations on the anomalous position of the Shaik of Koweit, Shaik Jabir [Shaikh of Kuwait, Shaikh Jābir bin ‘Abdullāh Āl Ṣabāḥ], for whilst the nominal supremacy of the Porte [the Government of the Ottoman Empire] over him means that he is exempt from the British political control and surveillance exercised over the other maritime chiefs of the Persian Gulf, Hennell also expects that he will not pay any attention to the Turkish orders for the suppression of the ‘slave trade’; Hennell’s intention to write to the Shaikh of Koweit about Soor [Sur] vessels sending enslaved persons to his town for sale, and to urge him to enforce within his own districts the same regulations which exist at Bussorah [Basra], regarding the suppression of the ‘slave trade’; the issue of Persian [Iranian] vessels and Persian ports engaged in ‘slave dealing’, the different methods of evasion practised by ‘slave traders’ in the Persian Gulf, and his suggestions for measures for the suppression of the traffic
• The Government of Bombay instructing HM Consul and Honourable Company’s [the East India Company’s] Agent in the Dominions of the Imaum of Muscat, Captain Atkins Hamerton, to bring to the notice of the Imaum the Soor vessels evading the treaty entered into with him for the suppression of the ‘slave trade’, and to express the conviction of the Governor in Council that the Imaum will adopt the necessary measures for prohibiting the embarkation of enslaved persons in his port
• The Government of Bombay requesting the Superintendent of the Indian Navy to issue instructions to the officer commanding the Honourable Company’s brigantine Tigris, under orders for Zanzibar, regarding the removal and disposal of enslaved persons from vessels which he may have the right to seize, and to gain as much information as he can regarding the Slave Trade and the effect the treaties recently concluded have had upon it.

The correspondence is primarily between the Government of Bombay (mostly the Chief Secretary to Government, Arthur Malet, and the Governor of Bombay, George Russell Clerk) and the following: the Resident in the Persian Gulf; the Advocate General, Bombay; the Superintendent of the Indian Navy; the Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay; HM Consul and Honourable Company’s Agent in the Dominions of the Imaum of Muscat; the Secretary to the Medical Board, Bombay, John Scott; the Governor of Muscat; the Imaum of Muscat; the President of the Diocesan Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Corresponding Committee of the Church Missionary Society; Mahomed bin Alli; and the Officiating Secretary to the Government of India, George Alexander Bushby.