Bassett_Letter
The Bassett Letter was a letter dated 8 February 1918 from the British Government to Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, following Hussein's request for an explanation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. It was delivered by Lieutenant colonel J. R. Bassett, Acting British Agent at Jeddah, who was forwarding a message he had received by telegram from the Foreign Office in London.
The letter dismissed the publication of the Sykes-Picot Agreement as an attempt by the Ottoman Empire to create mistrust between the Arabs and Britain during the Arab Revolt.
It was a formal message to support a telegram sent a few days previously to Hussein by Reginald Wingate, High Commissioner in Egypt. The preface to the Bassett Letter noted that Wingate had directed the sending of the Letter.