IOR/L/PS/5/449, ff 16-29

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 2 of 1847, dated 2 January 1847. The enclosures are dated 10 December 1846-2 January 1847.

The correspondents are: Stafford Bettesworth Haines, Political Agent at Aden; the Secretary to the Government, Bombay; and the Under-Secretary to the Government of India. The item also contains a minute of the President and Governor and the members in Council, Bombay.

The papers notably cover the following matters:

• The reported ‘tranquility’ among the Arab tribes in the neighbourhood of Aden and consequent open roads and flourishing markets
• The attitude of rapprochement between the recently ‘quarrelling’ Abdali [‘Abdalī] and Foutheli [Faḍlī] chiefs
• The report that the ships Larkins and Eliza with the wing of HM’s 94th Regiment on board have been detained by strong currents to the westward of Aden, and report of the return of the ship Recovery to Aden Harbour
• Haines’s report that he has sent the HC [Honourable Company’s] schooner of war Constance from Aden to the Zebayr [Zubayr] Islands in the Red Sea to observe any changes since the volcanic eruption on one of the islands and the results of the earthquake felt at Mocha and Hodeida [Al Hudaydah] for many miles distant at the time; the ship is then to go to Mussowah [Massawa] to investigate a ‘misunderstanding’ between a British Indian merchant and the Turkish [Ottoman] authorities
• The view of the Government of India that it would be inexpedient to use coercive measures against the Foutheli tribe for their ‘continued acts of aggression towards Aden’ (f 27).