IOR/L/PS/5/262, ff 557-564

The enclosures consist of letters from the Secretary to the Government of Bombay to the Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department, forwarding communications from Captain George Andrew Atkinson, Acting Political Agent at Muscat, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Pelly, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, relating to the following matters:

• The wreck of the Amaranth, a vessel belonging to HH Syud Toorkee [Sayyid Turkī bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd], off Shaik Shaab Island [Lavan Island], and Atkinson’s estimate that Toorkee has accumulated about 40,000 rupees from insurance at Bombay [Mumbai] and profits of the ship’s freight to Jeddah received in advance
• The expedition of Syud Azan bin Ghes [Sayyid ‘Azzān bin Qays Āl Bū Sa‘īd, Sulṭān of Muscat] from Burkeh [Barka] to the Ghaffree [Ghāfirī] country, supported by forces from the Henavi [Hināwī] tribes of the Batinah, including: the capture of Beni-Jabbar [Banū Jābir] towns; reports that the Siabeen [Siyābīyīn] tribe have been almost ‘annihilated and dispersed’; manoeuvres led by Saleh bin Ali [Ṣāliḥ bin ‘Alī al-Ḥārthī] before uniting with Syud Azan’s forces; and Syud Azan’s advance to Semeyal [Samail]
• Reports that despite Syud Azan’s victories the Ghaffreees are still in insurrection ‘in the hill country and down to Semayel’.

The Political Despatch was received in the India Office Secret Department on 1 May 1869.