IOR/L/PS/5/486, ff 154-166

This item comprises enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, [Bombay Secret Letter] No. 12 dated 2 February 1856. The enclosures are dated 10-25 January 1856.

The papers comprise three letters from Brigadier William Marcus Coghlan, Acting Political Resident and Commandant, Aden, to the Secretary to Government, Bombay, covering the following matters:

• The general peaceful state of affairs in Aden, including relations between tribes of the vicinity and lack of any ‘aggressions’ by the ‘Foutheli chief’ [Aḥmad bin Abdullāh al-Faḍlī]
• The report by HM Agent and Consul-General in Egypt that an order has, in fact, been given ‘for the emancipation of slaves within the Egyptian territory’ (f 161) but it has been very generally put into execution and has not yet met with any resistance by the ‘mussulman [Muslim] population’. Coghlan notes that the Consul-General’s letter indicates he has not yet heard of the recent disturbance in the Hejaz [also spelled Hedjaz in this item]
• Reports, from Hodeida [Al Hudaydah] that [Ottoman] Turkish troops have suppressed the insurrections in Jedda [Jeddah, spelled Judda in this item] and Mecca and intend to march on Taif [Ta'if] to where rebel leader Shereef Abd-el-Mutalib [Sharif ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib bin Ghālib bin Musā‘ad] has fled from Mecca
• News of a violent rebellion in Massowah [Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa] against the Governor of Massawa, reported by Raffaello Barroni, Agent to Mr Plowden [Walter Chichele Plowden], HM Consul in Abyssinia [now Ethiopia], including Barroni’s urgent request to Coghlan to send a vessel to save the ‘lives, merchandise and money of all the Indians, Banyans and Europeans who are here’ (f 164).

Also included are: three Resolutions of the Board including a Resolution to despatch the vessel Queen for the protection of British subjects at Jedda, and the Elphinstone to afford relief and protection at Mussowah on the proviso it does not prevent the restoration of peace in Jedda; and a letter from the Secretary to the Government of India agreeing that Lieutenant Richard Burton’s ‘negligence’ does not excuse the actions of the [Habr Awwal] tribe and that until reparation is received the blockade of Berbera should remain in place.