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HISTORY OF THE IXDTAX XAVY. 171
of pistol shot, assisted by our musketry. This was continued
until dark, when we both desisted at the same time as if by
mutual consent."
At daybreak the following morning (the 12th of April), the
Persian fleet was discovered in Harfah Creek, about thirty
miles below Bussorah Creek, on the Persian shore ; they were
quite out of reach and appeared to be aground. At six. the
' Eagle ' and 'Success,' followed by the Pasha's galivats and
ketches, weighed anchor, and worked down the river, driving
before them souie Persian galivats coming up the stream. On
arriving at the mouth of the Shatt-ul-Arab, the Pasha's two
galivats proceeded to Al Koweit— by the P]nglish called Grane
—a port then dependent on the Turkish Governor of Bussorah.
Previous to parting company, all the Turkish and Arab seamen
on board the Pasha's two ketches, numbering two hundred and
thirty men, were transferred to the galivats, and the former
being manned by Eiu'opean seamen from the 'Success' and
'Eagle,' accompanied those ships to Bushire. During the
voyage across the head of the Gulf, two trankies were captured
by the boats of the two cruisers, and, in the afternoon of the
15th of April, the ships arrived in Bushire Poads, where they
found some merchantmen, with the ' Drake,' Company's ship of
fourteen guns, flying the Commodore's pennant, and having on
board Mr. Robert Garden, a member of the Bombay Council,
who had come with despatches from the Governor regarding
the establishment of the fiictory at Bushire, which had been
closed for five years, and to demand the release of ^lessrs.
Beaumont and Green, two gentlemen of the Bussorah factory,
taken on board the ' Tiger,' a small brig of eight guns,
when she was captured by surprise by a fleet of the Shah's
galivats.
At this time, Ahmed, the Imaum of ]\Iuscat, was fitting out,
for the relief of Bussorah,* an army of ten thousand men, and
his fleet, " which," says Parsons, who passed through ^Muscat
on his way to l^ombay, "consisted of thirty-four shi{)s of war,
four of forty-four guns each (which were built at Bombay), five
frigates, from eighteen to twenty-four guns each ; the remainder
are ketches and galivats from fourteen to eight guns." Tliis
relief came too late, and, after a resistance of eight months,
Bussorah fell to the arms of Sadoc Khan, but in the f(.)llowing
* Mr. Francis Warden, Member of Council at Eonibay, in a memoraniliim on
the " Rise and Progress of the Arab tribes in tlie Persian Gulf," jirejiared in
August, 1819, states tliat one of tlie pretexts set forth by Kurreeni Khan, Shah
of Persia, for attacking Eussorah, was the granting of aid by the Paslia of
Bagdad to the luiauin of Muscat, which prevented hnn from subduing tlie
Province of Oman. On the death of Kurreeni Khan in 1779. Bussor;ih was
reoccupied by the Turks, and from tliat time may be dated the decline of Persian
influence in the Grulf, the contests lor superiority between the dill'erent jietty
chiefs involving a condition of anarchy, which, subsequently, required ihe strong
hand of the Indian Government to allay.