IOR/L/PS/5/410, ff 121-350

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 82 of 1842, dated 18 July 1842.

The enclosed papers, dated between May and July 1842, comprise minutes, correspondence and reports, and concern affairs in the Persian Gulf. The correspondence is between Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dundas Robertson, Officiating Resident in the Persian Gulf; the Military Auditor General, Bombay; Captain Atkins Hamerton, British Consul and East India Company Agent in the Dominions of the Imaum [Imām] of Muscat; the Government of Bombay; and the Government of India.

The papers cover several matters, including:

• The British withdrawal from the Island of Karrack [Kharg] and the re-establishment of the Residency at Bushire [Bushehr]
• The recommendation that Karrack become a sanatarium for sick Europeans
• The question of compensating the Residency Shroff following the attack on his house in Bushire in 1838
• Relations with the Wahabees [Wahhābīs] of Nedjd [Najd]
• Affairs of Bahrein [Bahrain]
• Question of where Captain Hamerton should reside within the Imaum of Muscat’s dominions and his efforts to procure suitable quarters at Zanzibar.

A section of the item (ff 251-329) relates to affairs in Persia [Iran] and Central Asia, as well as the Persian Gulf. It consists of copies of despatches sent by Sir John McNeill, Envoy to Persia, to the Earl of Aberdeen [George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen], Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The papers cover the following matters:

• News of the war in Afghanistan, including intelligence from Herat, Cabool [Kabul], and Candahar [Kandahar], and a translated copy of a letter (ff 282-289) from Mahomed Akber Khan [Muḥammad Akbar Khān], Afghan military leader, giving an account of the killing of William Hay Macnaghten, Political Agent at Cabool
• The Persian response to the British defeat in Afghanistan
• Relations between Russia and Persia, particularly along the coast of the Caspian Sea
• Delivery of the ratified commercial treaty between Britain and Persia to the Shah
• Affairs in Bokhara [Bukhara], including the suspected execution of the British-employed messenger, Ephrain, suggestions that compensation should be given to his family, and the imprisonment of British officers Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly, including a copy of the latter’s journal (ff 300-313)
• William Taylour Thomson’s visit to Merve [Merv].