Manuscript notebook of George John Malcolm

This is a manuscript notebook by Rear Admiral George John Malcolm, dated 1878-1881 and containing draft correspondence, speeches and descriptive accounts relating principally to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden ahead of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. Since 1873, Malcolm had been in the Turkish services as Pasha, and was employed as Director General of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Judge of the Slave Courts. Just before this, he had commanded anti-slavery British naval operations in Zanzibar and the northeastern coast of Africa in 1872-1873. The events and subjects covered in the notebook include:
- The examination at the Sudanese port of Suakin of various people accused of slave trading;
- A speech from 1880 which Malcolm most likely delivered in Freiburg, describing the region from the Suez Canal to Kismayo in present-day Somalia, concentrating on its geography, flora and fauna;
- A letter to the editor of The Globe, dated 1879, which Malcolm requested be published anonymously, about the tense relations between Egypt and Ethiopia after the 1874-1876 conflict;
- A series of letters, mainly dated 1881, on anti-slavery operations and the British positions in the Red Sea based on Malcolm's direct experience, including to such figures as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne, First Lord of the Admiralty Thomas George Baring, Earl of Northbrook, and the Foreign Secretary Granville Levenson-Gower, Earl Granville.