Page 288 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

XVI.] TRAVELS IN OMAN. 249

asked what treatment they anticipated—“ The

same immediate death as we should have in­
flicted on you, had your fortune been ours,”

was the stern and characteristic reply.
Few merchant vessels, without the convoy
of a ship of war, would now venture to sail

between India and the Persian Gulf, while
the native boats became subjected to almost

certain interception and plunder. The trade
in which great numbers of the latter were
employed became almost suspended, and the

patience or forbearance of Government was
at length exhausted.

In 1809, an expedition under Captain
Wainwright, in His Majesty’s ship Chiffonne,
several vessels in the Indian navy, and

a detachment of the Bombay army under
Colonel Smith, was sent against them. Their

principal stronghold, Ras el Khaimah, was
stormed and taken, and fifty of their largest

vessels burnt or destroyed. Left, on the
island of Kishm, and several other ports,

were reduced ; and though this had the effect
of checking them for a time, they soon re­
built these ports, and gradually returned to

their old practices.