The Persian Pamphlet Controversy

THE FEARS expressed by Grant and Parry that missionaries in India might be restricted further materialised within months of the arrival of Lord Minto, the new Governor-General (appointed July 1806). Minto told George Tierney, who had recently given up the presidency of the Board of Control, that he believed that a primary cause of the Vellore mutiny had been the spreading of rumours that the British were trying to convert India. By September 1807 Minto had come to the conclusion that there was no danger. Nevertheless, he felt that ‘the only successful engine of sedition in any part of India must be that of persuading the people that our Government entertains hostile and systematic designs against their religion’ and that therefore there was some danger by ‘the indiscretion of the well-meaning … but very mischievous zeal of the European missionaries’. Given this opinion, it was not surprising to find Minto precipitated into action when he received a complaint that the Baptist press had printed a pamphlet abusive of the prophet Muhammad.