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The record is made up of 1 file (388 folios). It was created in 17 Jan 1899-4 Apr 1904. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
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155 )
No. 175 of 1899.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.
%
FOREIGN DEPARTMENT.
SECRET.
External.
To
The Eight Hon’ble LORD GEORGE E. HAMILTON,
Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India*
Simla, the 21st September 1899.
My Lord,
We desire to address Your Lordship and, through Your Lordship,
Her Majesty’s Government on the subject of the relations of Great Britain
with Persia. We might find an adequate reason for so doing in the fact that
Your Lordship in your despatch of June 30th, 1899, enclosing a copy of a
recent despatch to the Foreign Office from Sir M. Durand, Her Majesty’s
Minister at Tehran, concerning the maintenance of our influence in Persia,
has directly invited an expression of the views of the Government of India
upon this matter; and, while calling our attention to the desirability of improv
ing the Political and Consular Service in that country, has at the same time
stated your desire to be made acquainted with our opinions upon the remaining
questions discussed by Sir M. Durand. But, in any case, we should have felt
it our duty at an early date to address Your Lordship on the subject. Although
the relations of Great Britain with Persia have for a period of exactly a century
occupied a large, and perhaps at times a disproportionate, space upon the field
of international diplomacy ; although during that time Great Britain has twice
broken off diplomatic relations and has once been at war with Persia in
vindication of British interests in or upon the borders of that country; and,
although large sums of money have been throughout the present century and
are still annually expended in the maintenance of those interests, both by Her
Majesty’s Government and by the Government of India, we have not been
able to discover in our records any clear definition of the principles upon which
our policy towards the Persian kingdom is based, of the objects which it should
keep in view, or of the scope and limits of the respective shares of responsibility,
political and financial, which should be assumed by the two partners, viz., Her
Majesty’s Government and the Government of India, who are jointly concerned
in the defence of Anglo-Indian interests in the dominions of the Shah.
2. We feel that there is at the present time the greater need for such a
discussion, because of the facts, which must be patent to all, that the Persian
Government appears well nigh to have exhausted all power of recuperation or
reform; and that the country, but feebly held together by any tie either of race,
religion, or loyalty, is only saved from a fate to which it must otherwise have
long ago succumbed, partly by a superficial vitality not infrequently seen
in political organisms, especially in the East, even when in an advanced stage
of decay, still more by the rival ambitions of the two great European Powers
between whom its territories are placed, and who are the real arbiters of its
About this item
- Content
The file contains papers relating to Seistan [Sistan] and Persia [Iran].
The file includes printed copies of despatches from the Agent to the Governor-General of India and HM Consul-General for Khorasan and Seistan (Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Martindale Temple), to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, with enclosed despatches from Captain Percy Molesworth Sykes to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Marquis of Salisbury). Skyes’s despatches regard matters including: Seistan; trade routes into South-East Persia; the boundary between Persia and Afghanistan, in relation to the River Helmund [Helmand] changing its course (in despatch No. 5, which includes four sketch maps, folios 12, 13, 14 and 15); Sykes’s journey to Birjand (in despatch No. 7, which includes a sketch map on folio 20); the ruling family of Kain, which also governed Seistan, Tabbas and Tun; Sykes’s journey from Seistan to Kerman [Kirman] (in despatch No. 11, which includes a sketch map); and the direct Kerman-Quetta caravan trade that Sykes was trying to establish.
The file also includes copies of the following papers:
- A despatch from Temple to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing a letter from Temple to Sir Henry Mortimer Durand (HM Minister, Tehran), with copies of enclosures, regarding the establishment of a Seistan and Kain consulate
- A letter from Charles Edward Pitman, Director General of Telegraphs, to the Secretary to the Government of India Public Works Department, enclosing a copy of a ‘Report on the Preliminary Survey of the Route for a Telegraph Line from Quetta to the Persian Frontier’ by H A Armstrong, Assistant Superintendent, Indian Telegraph Department, which includes six photographs of views along the route [Mss Eur F111/352, f 52; Mss Eur F111/352, f 53; Mss Eur F111/352, f 54; Mss Eur F111/352, f 55; Mss Eur F111/352, f 56; and Mss Eur F111/352, f 57], and a map showing the proposed route of the telegraph line [Mss Eur F111/352, f 59]
- Letters from Hugh Shakespear Barnes, Agent to the Governor-General in Baluchistan, to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing copies of the diary of the Political Assistant, Chagai, for the weeks ending 16 February, 28 February, and 8 March 1900
- Diary No. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 of Major-General George Frederick Chenevix-Trench, HM Consul for Seistan (Diary No. 6 includes a sketch map, folio 86)
- A copy of a ‘Report on Reconnaissances Made while Attached to the Seistan Arbitration Commission’ by W A Johns, Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways, Bombay
- A copy of the report ‘Notes on Persian Seistan’, compiled by Captain Edward Abadie Plunkett, and issued by the Government of India Intelligence Branch, Quarter-Master General’s Department
- Two copies of map signed by Plunkett titled ‘Persian Seistan-Cultivated Area’ [Mss Eur F111/352, f 270]
- A booklet entitled ‘Notes on the Leading Notables, Officials, Merchants, and Clergy of Khorasan, Seistan, Kain, and Kerman.’
- Printed copies of letters from the Government of India Foreign Department to the Secretary of State for India (Lord George Francis Hamilton), relating to the maintenance of British interests in Persia, dated 4 September 1899 and 7 November 1901 (the former with an enclosure of a minute by the Viceroy on Seistan).
- Extent and format
- 1 file (388 folios)
- Arrangement
The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the front to the rear of the file.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 390; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The file contains one foliation anomaly, f 301A
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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'Seistan' [355r] (711/782), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/352, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100069721606.0x000072> [accessed 27 June 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/352
- Title
- 'Seistan'
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2r:51v, 58r:58v, 60r:112r, 113r:125v, 147r:218r, 218r, 219r:269v, 271r:301v, 301Ar, 301Av, 302r:388v, 389v:390r, 389r, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence