!['Seistan' [‎376r] (753/782)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000001452.0x0003bc/Mss Eur F111_352_0777.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "'Seistan' [‎376r] (753/782)")
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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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.
,
London, Gth July 1900.
Secret,
No. 14.
To His Excellency the Right Honourable the Governor
General of India in Council.
My Lord,
Measures for the Protection of British
interests in Persia.
I have given my most attentive considera
tion to your Excellency’s telegram of the 16th of
March last, and the letter from the Government of
India, No. 175, dated the 21st of September 1899,
to which it refers, on the subject of measures for
the protection of British interests in Persia.
2. Reserving for the present my remarks upon
the comprehensive review of the situation in Persia
and in Seistan contained in your letter, and upon
the general line of policy which should be adopted,
I proceed to deal with some of the matters of
detail that are discussed in the correspondence.
From the terms of my Despatch No. 8, dated the
9th of March last, your Excellency will have learnt
that Sir Mortimer Durand intends hereafter to
submit revised proposals for certain consular ap
pointments ; and the broad question of the relative
liabilities of Imperial and Indian revenues for the
charges of British establishments in Persia cannot
be settled without advertence to the Final Report
of the Royal Commission on the Administration of
the Expenditure of India, which has lately been
presented to Parliament. In the meanwhile, I
have given my sanction to the measures affecting
the Meshed
agency
An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent.
, recommended in your letter
No. '27, dated the 15th of February 1900, and
I have learnt that you have appointed an assistant
Political Agent
A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency.
at Bahrein as a temporary arrange
ment. You have also deputed an officer to Bunder
Abbas as a provisional measure, and I await your
proposals for a permanent establishment at that
port, as promised in your letter No. 31, of the 1st of
March last. In this way some progress is being
made in providing for those parts of your scheme
which are regarded by the Government of India as
falling under its immediate supervision.
3. The subject of the administration of the
Nushki district is closely connected with the
matters under my consideration in this Despatch.
I shall in due course receive an expression of your
opinion as to the success of this line of communi
cation with Seistan and South-Eastern Persia, and
S. 21. A
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' [376r] (753/782), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/352, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100069721606.0x00009c> [accessed 6 July 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