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HISTORY OF THE IXDLVX NAVY. 317

sagacity in maintaining a close alliance with the British
Government.
In the year 1805, two English merchant brigs, the ' Shannon'
and ' Trimmer,' belonging to Mr. i\Iannesty, the Company's
Resident at Bussorah, while on the voyage from Bombay to
that place, were attacked near the islands of Polior and Kenn,
(Kais) by several Joasmi pirate boats, and, after a slight
resistance on the part of the ' Shannon' only, were captured,
and the native part of the crew of each put to the sword. The
captain of the ' Shannon' had his arm struck off as he had been
seen to fire a musket, but the European seamen were lauded
and permitted to disperse.
The vessels were armed, one of them with twenty guns, and,
being manned with Arab crews, were sent from Ras-ul-Kliymah
to cruise in the Gulf, where they committed many successful
piracies on maritime trade.
The Bombay Government had been so ill-advised as to place
the lives of their officers and men absolutely at the discretion
of these pirates by issuing an order signed by the President in
Council, directing all the commanders of the ships of the
Bombay Marine on no consideration to attack these blood-thirsty
rovers, and threatening to visit with displeasure any officers
who might molest them. In the same year that they attacked
the merchant brigs, ' Shannon' and ' Triunner,' the Joasmis.
encouraged by impunity, surrounded the Hon. Company's
cruiser, 'Mornington,' twenty-two guns, with a large fleet of
forty sail, and attempted to capture her. An action ensued,
and the 'Mornington' drove off her assailants with great
loss.
Though enraged at the attack upon the two merchant brigs,
the Government did not appear to be very anxious on rhe score of
the safety of their own ships of war, whose captain's iiauds they
had tied by orders not to take the initiative even in self-defence,
but to wait until they were fired upon, instructions which
resulted soon after in a sad catastrophe. "The Governor of
that period," says the traveller, J. S. Buckingham, '• from
i^-norance of the character of this people, could never be
persuaded that they _ were the aggressors, and constantly
upraided the officers with having, in some way, provoked the
attacks of which they complained—continuing still to insist on
the observance of the orders, in not firing on these vessels
until they had first been fired at by them." In consequence of
the attack upon the two brigs, the. Con)pany's ships were
directed to operate against the Joasmis in conjunction with the
Imaum's Government; the combined forces aceorilingly pro-
ceeded, in the year 180(5. to the island of Kishni, where they
blockaded the Joasmi fleet, which was reduced to such distress
that they sued for peace. Captain David Seton, the British