Correspondence respecting Abyssinians at Jerusalem. 1850-1867.

A parliamentary report on the organisation of the Abyssinian church in Jerusalem at the time of the British Expedition to Abyssinia in 1868.

The affair stemmed from an apparent slight offered to the Ethiopian King Tewodros II by Britain. Owing to an oversight at the Foreign Office, largely caused by internal disorganisation, the Ethiopian king's letter to Queen Victoria had gone unanswered. Further offence was taken when the Abyssinian Convent in Jerusalem, which had been under the quasi-protection of the British Consulate, was handed to the Armenians by the Ottoman authorities — the 'King's inference was that we had allowed it to be done' (Hansard, HC Deb. 5th December 1867 vol. 190). These diplomatic faux pas led Tewodros (whose name was anglicised at the time to Theobald) to take the rash step of holding the British Consul and a group of European missionaries hostage until an official response to his letter was received. Britain duly launched a punitive 'rescue mission' at the beginning of 1868, resulting in Tewodros' death and the looting of cultural artefacts.

Parliamentary report; folio (32 x 21 cm); light spotting to title; disbound; [2], 18, [2] pp.