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SGG HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
The ' Liverpool,' with Sir W. Grant Keir on board, after visiting
I>ushire, quitted the Persian Gulf for Bombay on the 24th of
]\larch, the General having left to garrison lias-ul-Khyraah, a
force, consisting of twenty artillerymen, the 1st Battalion 2nd
Regiment N.I., two companies of the Marine Battalion, and the
flank companies of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd N.I., the whole
being placed under the command of Captain T. Perronet
Thompson, of Her Majesty's 17th Dragoons, who, being an
excellent Arabic scholar, had rendered great service to the
General as interpreter, at the time of the signature of the
Treaties, to the translation of which his name is appended. In
the following April, the Bombay Government sent orders to
Captain Thompson to remove the detachment to Deristan,*
after dismantling the sea defences, and to give up the town to
Sultan Bin Suggur, the legitimate chief of Ras-ul-Khymah,
whose power was soon so greatly in the ascendant, that, in
1824, all the Joasmi ports appear to have acknowledged his
supremacy.t On a communication, however, being made to
the chief, he positively refused to take possession if the
works were destroyed ; a reference was consequently made to
Bombay, when final orders were issued to carry out the original
instructions. This was accordingly done, and the town was
finally abandoned by the British garrison on the 18th of July,
182U.
* Deristan is a large bay in Kislim, to the north-west of the island of Angaum
or Henjam.
t in the commencement of 1823, Sultan Bin Suggur began the erection of a
fort at Shargah, but was informed by the Political Resident that he must suspend
the work until the instructions of the Government could be received. An appli-
cation from the inhabitants of Ras-ul-Kliymah, says Lieutenant Hennell, for
permission to erect a wall across the isthmus, was likewise referred to the
Government, which intimated, in its reply, that it was not intended to prevent
the erection of forts or buildings on the Arabian coast, as the treaty concluded
by Sir W. G. Keir did not appear to authorise any such interference. About this
time the Sheikh of Rams was deposed through the iniluence of Sultan Bin
Suggur and all the Joasmi chiefs, and in the following year Rashid Bin Humeed
of Ejman, who had declared to the Resident that he would never sttbmit to the
authority of the Chief of Shargah, acknowledged his supremacy. In 1859,
fifty-six years after succeeding his father, Sheikh Suggur, he was still living at the
age of 103 years, the patriarch of the Joasmi, and his stately bearing and vene-
rable appearance were well known to the officers of the Indian Navy, with whom
the old Chief was ever on the best of terms.