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'ABSTRACT OF LETTERS FROM INDIA 1870' [188r] (382/798)
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.
fled after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the power of his
brother, Saeed bin Ahmed, to Khelat, the Khan of which State
made over Gwadur, then a fishing village of no importance, for
his support. He and his successors have, despite various efforts of
the Beloochees to regain it, never lost their hold on the place, and
from time to time fortifications have been added which have increased
its strength. In the time of the same Syud Sultan, Charbar was taken
by surprise from the Beloochees, and has ever since been retained
by the Arabs. In virtue of the extension of the Persian dominions
under Nadir Shah, which included the whole of the Mekran Coast,
the Shah’s Government has never ceased to lay claim to these two
towns. Colonel Goldsmid, who is intimately acquainted with the
history of Beloochistan, has, after a careful investigation of previous
correspondence, declared his conviction that the Shah has no claim to
either one or the other. The Imaum’s tenure of Charbar is acknow
ledged by the local Chiefs, who receive from him a portion of the revenues
in order to protect the port from attacks of tribes in the interior.
The Beloochees deny the free gift of Gwadur to Muscat, and say that
half only of the revenues were assigned. But at all events, the Imaum
monopolized the whole, and has retained them. In 1865-66 the
Governor of Kerman admitted to Colonel Goldsmid that he had
nothing to say to Gwadur, and that he had little power on the sea
coast. In the Telegraphic Convention of April 1868, the territorial
rights of Persia in Mekran were purposely left undefined. Article II.
merely grants a subsidy for leave to lay down a line of telegraph “ on
those parts of coasts and places which are under the sovereignty of
Persia.” Colonel Goldsmid, whilst excluding Gwadur, would include
Charbar, as a matter of expediency, within Persian limits, if the
boundary question ever really came under settlement. The unin*
terrupted tenure of both ports by Muscat, however, constitutes, in our
opinion, a strong argument against entertaining any obsolete claims
which might be raised by Persia or Khelat. Were we once to admit
that the former might, if she could, recover what she possessed in
Nadir Shah’s time, or the latter what Nusseer Khan held, there would
be the strongest inducement to encroachments, which would certainly
end in insecurity and probably in war. As regards Beloochistan and
Affghanistan, we have consistently aimed at maintaining the status quo,
and to depart from this endeavour at the present juncture would be,
in our opinion, to inaugurate a most disastrous policy. It will be in
your recollection that in the Telegraph Convention of 1865 we
distinctly admitted that there were places in Mekran subject to the
sovereignty of Syud Thowaynee. Again, in February of last year,
after Azan had established himself in Muscat, and at the time when
the Governor of Charbar had actually been summoned by him to his
side, we sanctioned the grant to Muscat of Rs. 1,500 a year for con
cessions at Gwadur and Charbar on account of our land line of
telegraph ; and when the Minister of Azan inquired from our Political
11896. 5 S
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' [188r] (382/798), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/CA10, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100135113392.0x0000b7> [accessed 22 July 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