"٢٢\١٦ بعثة مستر فيلبي إلى نجد - ١٩١٨." [و‎‎٩‎٤] (٥٣٨/١٨٧)

^ 4
D. 0.
Political Agency, Kuwait,
Dated July 27th, 1918.
With reference to your D.O. M 102 of July 11th,1918,
regarding your kit, firstly I should like to say that I quite
understand and sympathize with your feelings at the continued
non-receipt of your things - and further that, as bavin? assisted
in the compilation of the Indian General Staff hooks on Arabia, no
one could regret more than I do anything which should have lessened
the value of your recent journey.
At the same time, while I very much regret the matter
so far as this Agency is concerned, I feel that it is due to myself
and to my Staff to explain that the responsibility does not lie by
any means wholly with us as your letter implies.
To begin with, no list of your stuff was given to me
and all I knew was that some kit of yours had been left in the old
Agency in one godown; U was not, however, handed over to any one’s
charge and no one of the Agency Staff was present when it was put
in.
Before the receipt about April 24th of your letter of
April 5th (presumably your note from Hafar dated 4-3-18) I had sent
a Clerk to the old Agency to bring all your kit out to the new
house at Shuwaikh as Basrah -had telegraphed about it. brought
out a large number of boxes of foodstuffs, oil etc, most of which
had come here viS Bahrain but none of the other things mentioned
by you. I sent in again to make certain that there was nothing
more and also made enquiries at Gray, Paul’s house where Colonel
uunliffe-Owen had been staying, but no one knew anything ahout*any
kit except that ha had taken away but little. As both you and
Basrah had specially stated that I was not to send out foodstuffs
and nothing else was traceable and as I had understood that all
the stuff was in one godown, I concluded that what 1 had got hold
of must be the whole of the kit referred to by you and Colonel
uunliffe-Owen and that the rest roust have been left somewhere in
Najd after all. On April 27th I wrote telling you that your kit
was
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