‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries’ [‎76] (93/578)

76
PERSIA—NO. XVI—1851.
No. XVI.
Convention concluded between Colonel Sheil and Ameer-e-Nizam for the
detention and search of Persian vessels by British and East India Com
pany’s cruizers,— 1851.
The Persian Grovernment agrees that the ships of war of the British Govern
ment and of the East India Company shall, in order to prevent the chance of negro
slaves, male and female, being imported, be permitted for the period of eleven years
to search Persian merchant vessels in the manner detailed in this document, with
the exception of Persian Government vessels, not being vessels the property of
merchants, or the property of Persian subjects ; with those government vessels
there is to be no interference whatever. The Persian Government agrees that in
no manner whatever shall any negro slaves be imported in the vessels of the Persian
Government.
The Agreement is this—
First .—That in giving this permission to search mercantile vessels and those of
subjects, the search shall from the first to the last be effected with the co-opera
tion, intervention, and knowledge of Persian officers, who are to be on board
vessels of the English Government.
Second .—The merchant vessels shall not be detained longer than is necessary
to effect the search for slaves. If slaves should be found in any of those vessels
the British authorities are to take possession of them, and to carry them away,
without detaining or causing them (that is, the people of the ship importing slaves)
any other damage besides that of depriving them of the slaves. The vessel itself
in which the slaves have been imported shall, by the co-operation and knowledge
of the officers of the Persian Government, who are on board of the British cruizers,
be delivered to the authorities of the Persian ports, who are there on the part of the
Persian Government ; and the authorities of this (the Persian) Government are to
punish and fine, in a manner suitable to the crime he has committed, the owner of
that slaving vessel who has acted in contravention of the commands of His Majesty
the King of Persia by importing slaves.
The British ships of war are not in any manner to interfere with the Persian
trading vessels without the co-operation of the Persian Government officers ;
but the Persian Government officers must not on their part be remiss in the duty
committed to them.
This convention is to be in force for a period of eleven years, and after these
eleven years have expired, and the stipulated period has elapsed, if the Persian
vessels shall be interfered with for even a single day beyond the eleven years, it
will be opposed to the course of friendship with the Persian Government and to
the maintenance of her rights, and this Government will make a demand for satis
faction.
If the slaves who have been heretofore in Persia, and are now there, should,
from the present date and henceforward, wish to proceed by sea on a pilgrimage fo