IOR/L/PS/5/372, ff 234-249

This item comprises a copy of [extracts of] an enclosure to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee: Bombay Secret Letter No. 25 of 1838, dated 10 September 1838. Annotated ‘Received via Marseilles 26 October 1838’. The letters in the enclosure are dated 21 May-1 September 1838.

The papers comprise:

Reports by Samuel Hennell, Officiating Resident in the Persian Gulf, to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, containing copies of his correspondence with: Lieutenant-Colonel James Shirriff [mostly spelled Sheriff in this item], commanding the Field Force on the Island of Karrack [Kharg]; and John McNeill, HM Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Persia [Iran], notably including:

• McNeill’s advice that in case of a Persian attack on Bushire [Bushehr], Hennell should take steps to occupy and defend the town, if he considers he has a sufficient land and marine force to do so
• Shirriff’s opinion that his current force is insufficient to occupy and defend Bushire, and its water source one mile outside the town walls, against a Persian Army
• Hennell’s reluctance to risk any collision unless and until the detachment is ‘strengthened by the arrival of a body of European Troops’ (f 240)
• Hennell’s concern that he has not yet received further dispatches forwarded by McNeill from Tehran.

A report from McNeill to the Secretary to the Government of India, confirming:

• The arrival of the British expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf and landing of troops at Karrack
• That the British Government consider the Shah [Shāh] of Persia’s attack on Herat and Afghanistan [also spelled Affghanistan in this item] as a hostile enterprise towards British India, against the spirit of the Anglo-Persian alliance and probably planned in collusion with Russia
• That he has sent Colonel Charles Stoddart to deliver letters to the Shah prevailing upon him to abandon his attack
• That he has suspended diplomatic relations with Persia and departed for the frontier of Turkey.

McNeill encloses copies of a letter received from Lord Palmerston, HM Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and his own letter for the Shah to be delivered by Stoddart to the Shah’s camp near Herat.