IOR/L/PS/5/447, ff 340-358

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 145 of 1846, dated 2 December 1846. The enclosures are dated 9 September-2 December 1846.

The papers relate to affairs in Muscat [also spelled Maskat in this item], reported to the Government of Bombay by Captain Atkins Hamerton, HM Consul and HC [Honourable Company’s] Agent in the Dominions of the Imaum [Imām, also spelled Imam in this item] of Muscat (based in Zanzibar), including:

• The result of Hamerton’s investigation of the rumour that the Imaum had agreed to transfer Muscat and its dependencies to his son Prince Said Hillal [Sayyid Hilāl bin Saʿīd, also spelled Hellaul and Hillaul in this item], and Hamerton’s report of the bad relationship existing between the Imaum and the Prince
• The anxious desire, as conveyed by Hamerton to the Government of Bombay, of the Imaum to receive a response to his request to blockade the port of Bushire [Bushehr] in retaliation for the ‘oppressive conduct’ by Persian [Iranian] Government officials, notably the Governor of Bunder Abbas [Bandar Abbas], towards his subjects in his possessions on the Persian coast
• The proceedings of the Chief of Sohar, Syed Hamood bin Azan [Sayyid Ḥammūd bin ‘Azzān Āl Bū Sa‘īd, also spelled Saied in this item] in the Persian Gulf, including his transferring to the Matawas [al-Muṭawwi‘ūn, priests] of the Beni Saad [Banū Sa‘d, an Omani family group] the Fort of Sohar and its dependencies inland, and the election by 500 Matawas of an ‘Imam’ [‘a chief priest or Bishop’] for Oman (an office filled for many years by the Imām of Muscat’s family).

The principal correspondents are Hamerton and the Government of Bombay.

The last three enclosures, the Bombay Times Summary of Intelligence, the Overland Bombay Courier and the Bombay Telegraph are noted as ‘Missing 29.10.1906’.