IOR/L/PS/5/388, ff 154-259

This part of the volume consists of copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 92 of 1840, dated 31 October 1840. The enclosures are numbered 3-42 and are dated 1 September to 27 October 1840. They mostly consist of correspondence relating to Aden affairs.

The enclosures concern matters including:

• The Political Agent at Aden, Captain Stafford Bettesworth Haines, reporting the arrival at Aden of the Honourable Company’s sloop of war Elphinstone, brig Euphrates, and steamer Victoria carrying the mail, and forwarding the reports of the Commanders of the Elphinstone and the Euphrates to the Government of Bombay
• The proposed appointment by Haines of Mr Hatchatoor as Agent at Tadjoura
• The amount of reward to be paid to the Commander, Captain Warden, and crew of the barque Ariel for assistance provided at Aden over several days in November and December 1839, and the Political Agent at Aden paying Warden 200 German Crowns on account of the two brass guns which he supplied
• The approbation of the Government of India of the ‘gallantry’ with which the attack on Aden by ‘a large body of Arabs’ on 5 July 1840 was repulsed
• Haines reporting that he has ordered the Elphinstone to return to Aden for subsequent despatch to the Persian Gulf, and the Government of Bombay referring him to previous instructions for the detention of the Elphinstone at Mocha during the ‘present settled state of affairs’, for the protection of British interests in that area
• The crediting of money raised from the sale of goods recovered from the barque Duria Dowlut, which was wrecked at Aden in 1837, to the Government of Madras
• The political state of affairs in the neighbourhood of Aden
• Measures taken by the Political Agent at Aden to counteract attempts to establish French influence on the eastern coast of Africa
• Overtures from the King of Shoa [Shewa] to establish friendly relations with the British Government, and the question of whether or not it would be advisable to send a British mission to Shoa
• Haines’s opinion on the strength and description of the force required to proceed into the interior from Aden
• The Government of Bombay informing the Government of India that it is impossible at present for it equip a force of the strength and description considered necessary by the British authorities at Aden, for an attack on Lahedge [Lahej].

The correspondence is mainly between Haines and the Government of Bombay, and between the Government of Bombay and the Officiating Secretary to the Government of India.

Other correspondents include: Captain Sanders, Commander of the Honourable Company’s sloop of war Clive and Senior Naval Officer at Aden; Lieutenant Richard Ethersey, Commander of the Elphinstone; Lieutenant W Barker, Commander of the Euphrates; the King of Shoa; and Reverend F L Karff.

The enclosures also include copies of commercial treaties entered into, in September 1840, between the East India Company and the following: the Governor of Zeyla [Zeila], Syed Mahomed bar [Sayyid Muḥammad Barr]; and the Governor of Mocha, Sherriff Hussein bin ali bin Hydar al Hassenee [Sharīf Ḥusayn bin 'Alī bin Ḥaydar].