Aden Affairs [‎256r] (69/79)

Content

Folios 223-240 chiefly comprise correspondence and minutes of senior legal, financial and administrative officials of the Government in Bombay [Mumbai], and the Secretary to the Government of India, with the Governor-General. The main subjects covered are:

• The legality of sending convicts to Aden for employment in the construction of roads, in relation to Regulation XIV of 1827 regarding the transportation of convicts by the Government of India. Includes a summary of British law on transporattion of convicts from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I onwards
• The amount of allowance Major Bailie is entitled to receive whilst serving as 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. , Aden, during the absence of Commander Stafford Bettesworth Haines on sick leave, and the entitlement and liability of Haines regarding the cost of his passage to Bombay on sick leave
• Plans for the fortifications in Aden, including a discussion of the requirements and costs, following a report supplied by Captain Robert Foster of the Engineers
• Authorisation of expenses submitted for the superintending engineers purchasing and preparing material for barracks and other buildings at Aden.

Folios 241-261 comprise three reports by Haines to the Secretary to the Government, Bombay, 9 and 11 June, regarding the administration of Aden. His reports cover:

• The system of law and justice practiced at Aden prior to it becoming a British possession, including ‘Paper A’ entitled ‘Punishment according to Mahomedan Law’ (f 249)
• New arrangements for currency and customs duties, including ‘Paper B’ detailing former (up to May 1839) and proposed rates of import and export duty charged on sea and land (interior) goods including transit duties (ff 249-250)
• Merchant shipping activity on the peninsula coast
• The general health of the troops
• Measures undertaken by Major Bailie during Haines’s absence
• Haines’s requests for an assistant, a customs accountant from Bombay, and a boat and crew under the Agent’s charge
• The chain of mountains forming a boundary line with Egyptian possessions in the peninsula and the potential implications for viable British trade and commerce through the port of Aden, as well as the potential threat to British security
• The Agent’s proceedings with the Sultan of Lahedge [Lahej] and the various chiefs and sheiks [shaikhs] of the vicinity since his arrival on 20 May 1839, including the cultivation of relationships; arrangement of stipends; exchanges of gifts; and assurance that the British have no plans to march on Lahedge
• The Agent’s suggestion concerning the employment of mounted camel bedwins [bedouins] to police or patrol the plains adjacent to interior.

Extent and format

1 item (40 folios)

Written in

English in Latin script

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