وثيقه Vas̲īqah of Lord Amherst to Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, 26 March 1824 C.E., 24 Rajab 1239 A.H.

Original illuminated presentational copy of the bilingual vas̲īqah or letter of agreement introducing the diplomatic credentials of Liftinant Karnīl [Karnel] Mikdunald Ṣāḥib Bahādur or Lieutenant-Colonel MacDonald [John MacDonald Kinneir, later Sir] (d. 1830) as the Envoy and Resident Minister to the Court of Qājār Persia [Iran], issued by the East India Company’s Governor-General of India, Lord Amherst (later Earl Amherst of Arracan [Arakan Province, Burma, now Rakhine State, Myanmar], and Viscount Holmesdale, d. 1857), for the use of a British embassy to the King of Persia, Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh Qājār (d. 1834).

The paper scroll is adorned with a painted golden trellis of repeated floriate cells and edged with ornamented rulings, including a diagonal cut in the lower right corner. The bilingual contents are set out in two parallel vertical columns defined by ornamented rulings under a single illuminated sarlawḥ or headpiece, with text in Persian in the left column and English in the right column. The gilded cartouche for the titles of the addressee or invocation to God has been left blank.

The document is dated in the Persian column as 26 March 1824 ʿĪsavī (Christian [CE]) and 24 Rajab 1239 [lunar] Hijrī. The English text states the document was completed at Fort William [Calcutta, now Kolkata, India], while the Persian text confusingly states the location was Fort St George in the Province of Bengal. Fort St George was the East India Company’s administrative centre of the Madras Presidency at Madras [Chennai, India]. The Persian text exhibits other intertextual differences indicating significant phraseological and tonal divergencies from the English text. Amherst has not affixed his seal of office in Persian below the Persian text. As the Persian text appears not to have been corrected or endorsed, it is not clear whether this document was ever submitted to the Qājār Court.

The document appears to have been retained in the private papers of Lieutenant-Colonel John MacDonald Kinneir (later Sir, d. 1830), and were donated to the University of Edinburgh (Dk.2.37; see the Edinburgh University Calendar, 1956-1957, p. liii) through the mediation of a descendent, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Forbes Mackay, in a typed letter, dated 30 May 1955, addressed to Dr L. W. Sharp, Librarian, University of Edinburgh.