IOR/L/PS/5/447, ff 240-255

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 142 of 1846, dated 2 December 1846. The enclosures are dated 24 September-28 November 1846.

The enclosures relate to a complaint by Captain Stafford Bettesworth Haines, Political Agent at Aden, regarding the initial refusal of Captain James Kilner, the Executive Engineer, Aden, to furnish him with the sanctioned plans for the fortifications of Aden for inspection by Commodore Sir Henry Blackwood. Also covered are:

• Kilner’s release of the plans upon learning that Blackwood has instructions directly from the Governor-General of India to inspect and report upon the sea defences of Aden
• Haines’s complaint about Kilner’s repeated lack of courtesy, and insistence on the need for a regulation or instruction to be put in place in order to avert future uncooperative behaviour respecting the Political Agent’s authority
• The concurrence of the Government of Bombay that Kilner’s conduct was wrong and deprecation of ‘these wranglings between the Political Agent and the Engineer Department’ (f 247)
• The agreement of the Governor-General that Kilner ‘manifested a want of a conciliatory disposition’ (f 251), coupled with a defence of Kilner’s adherence to proper confidentiality and security procedures and suggestion that the Government of Bombay admonish both officers, who should show ‘an example of moderation and an obliging spirit’ towards each other, adding that ‘no regulations or instructions can enforce courtesy’ (f 252).

The principal correspondents are the Government of Bombay, Haines, and the Government of India.