IOR/L/PS/5/446, ff 171-237

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 118 of 1846, dated 14 October 1846. The enclosures are numbered 3-4 and are dated 14 to 15 August 1846, and relate to Persian [Iranian] affairs.

Enclosure No. 3 consists of a letter from HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Persia, Lieutenant-Colonel Justin Sheil, to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, forwarding under flying seal a letter to the Secretary to the Government of India, enclosing copies of despatches addressed by Sheil to HM Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Earl of Aberdeen, dated 20 July to 10 August 1846. It also includes one letter from Sheil to HM Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Sir Stratford Canning, dated 10 August 1846.

The despatches concern matters including:

• Sheil raising the claims for compensation of Hajee Noor-ood-deen [Ḥājī Nūr al-Dīn], a British subject, with the Persian Government
• The Persian Government having built up a ‘considerable’ artillery at Tehran, with Sheil enclosing a list of the guns and ordnance stores in the arsenal at Tehran
• An outbreak of cholera in Tehran
• The death from cholera of Meerza Abul Hassan Khan [Mīrzā Abū al-Ḥasan Khān Shirāzī, Īlchī-yi Kabīr], Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Sheil’s preference for his successor
• The Persian Government having been persuaded not to recall the Persian Minister at Erzeroom [Erzurum], Meerza Tekkee Khan [Mīrzā Taqī Khān Farāhānī, also known as Amīr Kabīr], following an attack on him in which he nearly lost his life, two of his servants were murdered, and his property was stolen; and the Persian Prime Minister, Hajee Meerza Aghassee [Ḥājī Mīrzā (ʿAbbās Īravānī) Āqāsī], instead instructing him to seek redress for these events from the Turkish [Ottoman] Government, and in anticipation of this being readily accorded, to sign the treaty with the Porte
• The Russian Minister to Persia, Prince Dolgorouki [Prince Dimitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov] having addressed a ‘violent and personally threatening’ letter to Hajee Meerza Aghassee, calling on him to disavow in writing language which had been attributed to him, as well as any intention of going to war with Russia, which the Persian Prime Minister had complied with
• The Court of Spain attempting to negotiate a treaty of commerce with the Persian Government
• The intention of the Russian Government to send a war steamer from Astracan [Astrakhan] twice a month laden with merchandise to the coast of Asterabad [Gorgan], and the opposition of the Persian Ministers to repeated visits of a Russian war ship to the Persian Coast
• The Shah [Muḥammad Shāh Qājār] complaining to Sheil about the encroachments of Russia in the direction of Asterabad.

Sheil’s despatches include enclosed copies of the following: correspondence between Sheil and Meerza Abul Hassan Khan; autograph letters from the Shah to Hajee Meerza Aghassee; correspondence between Prince Dolgorouki and Hajee Meerza Aghassee; and letters from Aghassee to Meerza Tekkee Khan and Sheil.

Enclosure No. 4 is a letter from Sheil to the Secretary to the Government of India, dated 5 August 1846, informing him, for the information of the Governor-General, of the death of Meerza Abul Hassan, in view of him having been a pensioner of the British Government.