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The Foreign Office and the ‘Abyssinian Captives’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

J. R. Hooker
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Extract

Hoisting the banner of St George on the mountains of Rasselas seemed a good thing to most of Disraeli's countrymen in the spring of 1868. A British consul, a special agent of the Bombay government's Aden establishment, and a number of laymen and missionaries, among them British subjects, were rescued from a mountain prison, and Theodore, the apparently mad ruler of Abyssinia (as Ethiopia was then known), committed suicide. All this for a cost of something like £9,000,000. And, having marched his men to the top of the hill, Sir Robert Napier (soon to become Baron Napier of Magdala) marched them down again. Abyssinia remained chaotic but free, and British relations with it returned to normal, that is to say the Foreign Office ceased to regard it except under compulsion.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1961 , pp. 245 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

1 Plowden, Walter, Travels in Abyssinia and the Galla Country, ed. Plowden, Trevor (London, 1868);Google Scholar Foreign Office (F.O.) I/II, 9 January 1860; F.O. Confidential Print 401/ 1, January 1868; F.O. 1/12, May 1862. All files are from the Public Record Office. No pagination.

2 Foreign Office List, comp. Hertslet, Edward (London, 01 1865), 65–6; F.O.I/II, 2 February, 10 July, 16 and 18 November 1860; Add. MSS 38, 991, f. 147. All MSS are from the additional series in the British Museum and unless otherwise described are the Austen Layard papers.Google Scholar

3 F.O.1/13, 31 October 1862 (received 12 February 1863). Theodore had spoken of an embassy since 1855. Before Cameron left London in 1861, the king raised the topic again, but his letter to the acting consul was lost at the F.O. See F.O. I/II, received 14 November 1861.

4 F.O.1/13, 1 March, 22 April and 11 May 1863.

5 F.O.1/13, 20 May (received 28 August) and 8 September 1863. Cameron also was told to stop sprinkling his despatches with the words ‘lenvoy’ and ‘mission’.

6 F.O.1/13, 30 September (received 1 October) 1863.

7 F.O.1/14, 24 Sebruary (received 8 March) 1864.

8 F.O.1/14,7, 11 and 14 May 1864. The F.O. denied the later allegation that Theodore's letter had been withheld from Russell. See Sanderson's memo, F.O.401/2. Confidential Print, December 1867.

9 F.O.1/14, 6, 9 and 11 June 1864. For Rassam see Foreign Office List (March 1868) 150; Add. MSS 39, 114, ff. 158–9; and the anonymous review (probably by the Rev. Badger, G. P.) of Rassam's Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia (2 vols, London, 1869) in the Quarterly Review (04 1869), 299–327.Google Scholar

10 F.O.1/14, 16 June 1864.

11 F.O.1/14, 19 August (received 30 September) and 29 December 1864.

12 F.O.1/15, 23 February 1865; Add. MSS 39, 113, ff. 345–6; Add. MSS 39, 114, ff. 149–57.

13 Add. MSS 39, 113, ff. 72–3, 98–9, 196, 202, 236–7; Add. MSS 38, 991, ff. 45, 73, 80, 188–91; Add. MSS 3g, 11, ff. 149–57. For the origin of Beke's quarrel with authority, see the Beke papers, Add. MSS 30, 354, ff. 86–100. This tells of his contest with the court of directors of the East India Company over money Beke claimed for services rendered during Captain Harris' expedition to Shoa in 1841.

14 F.O.1/1, 3 April 1865. Another copy is among Layard's papers. Add. MSS 38, 991, ff. 47–8.

15 Add. MSS 39, 114, ff. 300–1; Pall Mall Gazette, 1 April 1865.

16 Add. MSS 39, 115, ff. 335–41; Add. MSS 39, 115, ff. 87–93.

17 Add. MSS 38, 991, ff. 198, 218 (clipping).

18 Add. MSS 39, 115, ff. 501, 367–9. Palgrave has a discreet notice in the DNB.

19 Add. MSS 38, 991, ff. 258, 277–8, 283–4, 287–8; Add. MSS 39, 116, ff. 40–1, 83–4, 92–5, 97–105, 109–10; F.O.1/15, 20 and 21 July 1865.

20 F.O.1/15, 10, 21 and 22 July 1865; F.O.1/16, 30 July, 12 and 18 August 1865.

21 Add. MSS 39, 116, ff. 264–5, 320–1, 323; Add. MSS 38, ff. 132, 541–2, 162.

22 Add. MSS 39, 116, ff. 456–7.

23 F.O.1/16, 5,6 and 7 September 1865; Add. MSS 39, 117, ff. 4–5, 13–14, 34–7, 47–8, 63–4, 118–59, 122–4; Add. MSS 38, 953, ff. 132–6.

24 F.O.1/16, 9, 11, 12 and 20 September 1865.

25 F.O.1/16, 16 September 1865.

26 F.O.1/16, 13 December 1865.

27 Add. MSS 38, 992, ff. 158–9 (12 January 1866) and 176–7 (18 January).

28 Ibid. f. 235 (15 February 1866); Add. MSS 39, 118, ff. 322–3, 346–54, 357–60.

29 Ibid. ff. 370–1, 441–2.

30 Add. MSS 38, 992, f. 253; Add. MSS 39, 119, ff. 286–8; Add. MSS 39, 120, ff. 77–8, 321–2, 475–6; F.O.1/17, 6 and 28 April 1866.

31 F.O.1/17, 25 and 30 June 1866.

32 F.O.1/17, 10 July 1866; Add. MSS 38, ff. 17–18; Add. MSS 38, 960, ff. 29–31.

33 F.O.1/17, 14 July 1866; F.O.1/18, 28 August 1866.

34 Add. MSS 38, 960, ff. 33–4 (17 August 1866); Add. MSS 38, 954, ff. 22–3.

35 F.O.1/18, Aden, 28 August; Alexandria, 3 September 1866.

36 F.O.1/18, 4 and 8 October, also Flad's from Massawa, 5 November 1866.

37 F.O.1/18, contracts under various dates, September-October 1866.

38 F.O.1/19, 15 January, 15 and 28 February 1867.

39 F.O.1/19, 22 and 23 March 1867.

40 F.O.1/19, 19 March 1867; Add. MSS 38, 994, ff. 239, 263–4.

41 F.O.1/19, 29 March 1867; The Times, 23 September 1867.

42 F.O.1/19, 29 April 1867. For the affinities between the eastern Orthodox and Abyssinian churches and the political uses thereof, see Jesman's, CzeslawRussians in Ethiopia (London, 1958).Google Scholar

43 F.O.1/19, 20 April 1867;Google ScholarLang, Andrew, Life, Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote … (2 vols, London, 1890), I, 310.Google Scholar