IOR/L/PS/5/463, ff 549-591

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 21 of 1850, dated 15 April 1850.

The enclosed papers, dated 1 December 1849 to 14 February 1850, concern affairs in Persia [Iran]. They comprise despatches from Lieutenant-Colonel Justin Sheil, British Envoy and Minister to the Court of Persia, to Viscount Palmerston [Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston], Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Copies of these despatches are sent to the Government of Bombay and the Government of India.

Several matters are covered by the papers, including:

• News of British officers Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly, imprisoned at Bokara [Bukhara, also spelled Bokhara in this item], rumours of their execution, and diplomatic efforts to secure their release
• Insecurity and disorder in Yezd [Yazd] and Ispahan [Isfahan]
• Russian demands to build a naval hospital on Persian territory and relations between Russia and Persia more generally
• The treatment of Armenians in Tabreez [Tabriz]
• Civil war in Khorassan [Khorasan]
• The state of the country around Bushire [Bushehr] following the lifting of the siege of that town
• Measures taken to protect the Nestorian Christian community in Azerbijan [Azerbaijan]
• A request for war vessels to be sent to either Bussorah [Basra] or Mohemmera [Khorramshahr] to support the work of the Turco [Ottoman Iraq]-Persian Boundary Commission
• A proposal to appoint a British Consul at Asterabad [Gorgan]
• The trafficking of enslaved peoples into Persia via Bushire.