IOR/L/PS/5/486, ff 167-188

This item comprises enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee [Bombay Secret Letter], No. 13 dated 2 February 1856. The enclosures are dated 6 December 1855-29 January 1856.

The primary correspondents are the Secretary to the Government, Bombay; Charles Augustus Murray, HM Envoy in Persia [Iran] ‘at a place near Tehran’; and Commander James Felix Jones, Indian Navy, Acting Resident in the Persian Gulf, Bushire [Bushehr]. The item also includes minutes of the Governor and President in Council, Bombay, and the members in Council and a memorandum by the Secretary to the Government, Bombay.

The papers cover the following matters:

• Murray’s report to the Bombay authorities of the withdrawal of the British Mission from Tehran due to the ‘offensive conduct’ (f 168) of the Persian Government, and recommendation to increase naval security in the Gulf at Bushire
• Discussions by the Government of Bombay of measures required to enhance British security in the Gulf region, including augmenting the Naval Squadron at Bushire under Commodore Richard Ethersey and improving communications between Bushire and Bussorah [Basra] and Baghdad
• The decision to despatch the HEIC [Honourable East India Company] steamers Ajdaha and Victoria to Bushire with a detachment of European artillery, with the prospect of further steamers to follow
• The Government of Bombay’s request to the Government of India for instructions regarding action to be taken in the event of a total breakdown in diplomatic relations, in particular the question of sending a force to the island of Karrack [Kharg, also known as Khark]
• The Bombay Government’s request that Jones remind Commodore Ethersey that his officers should abstain from corresponding with associates in India about the current diplomatic rupture, following the appearance of an article in the Bombay Times which implies that the ‘quarrel betwixt the Hon’ble Mr Murray and the Shah of Persia is occasioning an amount of inconveniency to the [British] State’ and shows ‘to what an extent the personal indiscretions of an intemperate man may interfere with public affairs’ (f 182).