'File 19/191 III (C 56) Bahrain, Persian Claim To' [‎115r] (248/396)

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Sheikh's palace on which the flag was flying. There appears
to be no foundation for the suggestion that the Persian flag
was flying when the Resident reached Bahrein or that it was
fired on (see paragraph 80). If previously hoisted it had, by
the time of the Resident's arrival, been hauled down.
(c) In the undated letters from Sheikh Md. bin Khalifah
communicated to the Foreign Office by the Persian envoy in
April 1869, the Sheikh stated that he was hoisting the flag of
the Lion and Sun over Bahrein. If, as seems probable
from internal evidence, these letters date from the period of
the abortive Persian Mission to Bahrein of 1860-61, it is
relevant in assessing their importance that immediately
after the reception of the Persian envoy, a Turkish envoy
was received, the Persian flag hauled down and the Turkish
flag substituted, and that in the early part of 1861 the flags
of Persia and Turkey appear to have been flying side by
side on the forts at Bahrein. There is nothing to show that
either flag flew in Bahrein between the conclusion of the
Convention of 1861 (paragraph 70) and 1868.
(d) In September 1869 the ex-Sheikh Md. bin Khalifah
attacked the islands, and with the assistance of Sheikh Md.
bin Abdulla killed the ruling Sheikh Ali. The Persian flag
may have been hoisted on this occasion. But there is no
reference to this in the detailed reports of the capture of the
islands by Sheikh Md. bin Khalifah and Sheikh Md. bin
Abdullah, or of the operations as the result of which those
Sheikhs were reduced at the end of 1869. (Enclosure to
Government of India's Despatch No. 7 of 25th January 1870 ;
Resident's Despatches of 11th September, 25th September,
and 5th October 1869.)
(7) Letters from past Rulers o
Suzerainty.
It is by no means improbable that in 1799, 1816-17,
and 1839 the rulers of Bahrein addressed letters to the
Persian Government acknowledging Persian suzerainty over
the island, and they appear certainly to have done so in
1860. But the only letters the text of which has ever been
communicated to Her Majesty's Government are the two
letters communicated by the Persian envoy in London in 1869.
Those letters indeed categorically acknowledge Persian
suzerainty over Bahrein, and state that it has been uninter
ruptedly exercised in the past. But they appear to date
from 1860, and the submission of Bahrein to Turkey and
the hauling down of the Persian flag in the same year are,
it is suggested, material in assessing the weight to be
attached to them,
(8) Declarations made hy Her
Persian Minister in 1869.
(a) These declarations are examined in paragraph 98
above. The text of the Note addressed by the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs to the Persian envoy on 29th April
1869, on which the subsequent Persian claims have to a
considerable extent been based, is given in paragraph 85
above. The wording of that Note, and the general attitude
adopted by Her Majesty's Government, as evidenced by their
acquiescence in the despatch of a mission to Bahrein by
Persia, undoubtedly afforded Persia justification for the
inferences she appears to have drawn. But, as pointed out in
paragraph 10 of the Note addressed to the Persian Minister
on 18th February 1929 and reproduced in Appendix B,
the JSipte in question, while very loosely expressed, was
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