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'ABSTRACT OF LETTERS FROM INDIA 1870' [71v] (149/798)
The record is made up of 1 volume (395 folios). It was created in Dec 1869-Dec 1870. 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
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
138
despatching the timber; steam freight twice charged; and ground
rent of the yard in Calcutta where the timber was stacked.
The timber was never inspected by an officer of the Company,
and the result now arrived at shows that a large quantity was not up
to the specification required by the indent, viz., to be fit for carriage
building purposes. But the most unsatisfactory feature in the whole
case is, that there is grave reason to suppose that Colonel Elphinstone
himself had a share in the firm of Walter Brothers from whom
the timber was ostensibly purchased, while it would further appear
that the timber was actually purchased from Messrs. Borradaile,
Schiller, & Co. by Colonel Elphinstone for Bs. 90 per ton, and that
Walter Brothers were merely the forwarding agents; this statement,
if correct, would alone show a misappropriation of Rs. 12,800.
The indent was no doubt sanctioned by Government, but this
sanction did not the less render it the Agent’s duty to purchase good
timber in the cheapest market available. The Government, consi
dering the Agent was acting in good faith, did not exact any security,
or look into the matter suspiciously. The Agent appears to have
abused this confidence, and purchased the timber without a sufficient
guarantee, if any, as to its value or quality. No specific proposal was
ever laid before Government to purchase any specific lot of timber,
and it is clear from Colonel Elphinstone’s own statement that, at the
time the sanction was accorded, no specific contract had been made
by him for the purchase now under reference. The authorization,
therefore, was a general one, and the responsibility for seeing that its
conditions were complied with rested exclusively on the Company’s
Agent, and was in no way shared by the Government.
Such being the circumstances of the case, to allow the loss in
curred in this manner to be charged to Capital would be, in our
opinion, to establish a very inconvenient and dangerous precedent. It
would be virtually to accept the principle that no expenditure can be
disallowed from the railway Capital Accounts, however wastefully or
improperly incurred, provided only it was nominally incurred for a
pin pose previously approved by Government. Authorization to incur
expenditure must necessarily precede the actual outlay, and all that
such sanction can be properly said to confer is the authority to incur
the outlay in a reasonable manner and under proper precautions,
which was certainly not the case in the present instance.
The control and audit of the Government, as hitherto exercised,
are directed to two points: first, to see that money is not spent without
previous authority given to the expenditure ; and next, that the expen
diture is in itself xeasonable and proper. In the present case, under a
sanction to appropriate funds to a certain purpose, they were mis-
appropriated m a manner nothing short of fraudulent, If the Govern-
ment is to be committed to pay interest for ever on money mis-
About this item
- Content
Confidential printed abstracts of letters received by the 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. from the Government of India, and from senior officials in certain areas outside India, during the year 1870. The letters are dated December 1869-December 1870. The abstracts each have one of the following titles:
- Abstracts of Secret Letters received from India
- Abstracts of Letters received from India
- Abstracts of Military Letters received from India
- Abstracts of Letters received from Zanzibar and Muscat
- Abstracts of Letters received from Aden
- Abstracts of Letters received from Muscat
- Abstracts of Letters received from Bushire [Bushehr]
- Abstracts of Letters received from Aden and Zanzibar
- Abstracts of Letters received from Bushire and Aden
- Abstracts of Letters received from Zanzibar and Aden.
Each abstract contains summaries of one or more letters from the specified source, each with a title giving the subject of the letter. Letters from India are divided within each abstract by the branch or department of the Government of India they originated from. The correspondence covers issues including:
- Pay, pensions, recruitment, and other personnel issues in the Indian Civil and Military establishments
- Public works, including: railways, including a proposed railway from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ; roads; canals; irrigation; docks; and river embankments
- Revenue, expenditure, and taxation
- Land issues, including: the cultivation of cotton, cinchona, and silk; forestry; and coal mining
- Education
- Banking
- Telegraphy, including international telegraphic links to India
- Affairs concerning Princely States, including internal administration, debts, allowances, issues of succession, investment in railways, and territorial claims
- Issues around emigration from India to British and French colonies
- Legislative and judicial affairs, including the question of jurisdiction over British subjects in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
- Military affairs, including the organisation and supply of military units and a proposed naval force for the Indian seas and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
- Frontier affairs: relations with tribes on the Northwest and Northeast Frontiers and frontier raids
- Affairs in Persia [Iran], including: Persian claims to sovereignty over Bahrein [Bahrain] and objection to British actions in Bahrein; frontier disputes around Khelat [Kalat], Mekran [Makran], and Seistan [Sistan] and proposed arbitration of the Persian-Afghan border; anticipated food shortages and subsequent disturbances involving British subjects exporting grain from Bushire
- Affairs in the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, including: the consolidation of and challenges to the rule of Syud Azan [Azzān bin Qays Āl Bū Sa‘īd]; debates around British policy towards Syud Azan; confrontation between Muscat and the Wahabees [Waḥabī movement]; the issue of the Zanzibar subsidy; and Syud Azan’s claims to Bunder Abbas [Bandar-e ‘Abbas], Gwadur [Gwadar], Charbar [Chabahar] and other territories on the Mekran Coast
- Affairs in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , including: the campaign of Colonel Lewis Pelly in Bahrein and the installation of Esau bin Ali [‘Īsá bin ‘Alī Āl Khalīfah] as Ruler; trade and shipping in the Gulf; the desire of the Shah of Persia for a naval presence in the Gulf; Dutch and Turkish [Ottoman] activity in the region; and tensions between Bahrein and the Wahabees, including Wahabee inroads in the Guttur peninsula [Qatar]
- Affairs in Affghanistan [Afghanistan], including relations with Bokhara [Emirate of Bukhara] and Russia
- Central Asian affairs, including the Russian advance in the region, trade and communication from India to Central Asia via Cashmere [Kashmir] and Ladak [Ladakh], and affairs in Eastern Turkestan [Xinjiang]
- Affairs in Zanzibar, including the slave trade, relations with Muscat, the death of Syud Majid [Mājid bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd], and the accession to the throne of Syud Burgash [Barghash bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd]
- Affairs in and around Aden Settlement, including: relations with neighbouring polities, including Lahej [Laḥij Sultanate], Houshebi [Ḥawshabī Sultanate], Fodtheli [Faḍlī Sultanate], and Kathiree [Kathīrī Sultanate]; the purchase of Little Aden; the defences of Aden; an attack on Hodeida [Al Hudaydah] from Aseer [‘Asir] and the threat to Lahej from the Zaidees [Zaidīs]
- Affairs in the Red Sea, including attempted French, Austrian, Turkish, and Egyptian inroads in the region
- Affairs in Burmah [Burma/Myanmar], Bhootan [Bhutan], and Nipal [Nepal].
The primary correspondents are:
- The Government of India
- The Viceroy and Governor-General of India
- The Resident at Aden
- The Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
- The 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. in Muscat
- The 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. in Zanzibar.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (395 folios)
- Arrangement
The abstracts are arranged in roughly chronological order. A detailed index of subjects, places and people mentioned in the correspondence is included on folios 384-393.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 395; 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 foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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'ABSTRACT OF LETTERS FROM INDIA 1870' [71v] (149/798), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/CA10, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100135113391.0x000096> [accessed 4 August 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/20/CA10
- Title
- 'ABSTRACT OF LETTERS FROM INDIA 1870'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, 1r:116v, 119r:395v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence