Page 100 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

58 ARAB TRIBES.

who had usurped the Government from his elder brother, led him into
serious disputes with the Arabs, which brought on a war with many 0°f
them. The British flag was insulted in one or two instances, for
which, however, satisfaction was rendered. The troubles that prevailed
from this period to the death of Syud Sultan, in 1804, are wholly
attributable to the conduct of that chieftain in the prosecution of his
ambitious views of aggrandisement.
The disputes that followed the death of Syud Sultan, for the succcs-
sion, threw the Government of Muskat completely under the control
of the Wahabee: from that period, the influence which the former chief
had established declined, and that of the latter rapidly advanced, to the
establishment of its ascendancy over the Gulf,—an event which led to
the systematic prosecution of piracy, under the countenance and
protection of that power, even to the Indian Seas.
The history of the rise of the Muskat, the Joasmec, and the
Uttoobee. Arabs, respectively, satisfactorily shows that they resisted
the growing power of the Wahabees to the utmost of their eflorts, and
that not one of the petty States in the Gulf has voluntarily engaged in
piracy.
From the period of their establishment in Oman until the year 1796,
I have been unable to trace a single act of aggression, even on the part
of the Joasmees, against the British flag. The attack of the Bassein,
Snow, and of the Viper cruiser, in 1797, was supposed to have been by
Arabs in the interest of the deposed Prince of Oman, the elder brother
of Syud Sultan. In 1802 the Wahabees had reduced to nominal
submission the principality of Seer, or the Joasmee territory; nor was it
until after 1804 that the Joasrnees, or, what would be a more just
designation, the Wahabee Joasmees, commenced their piratical
depredations. On the conclusion of the treaty with them in 1806,
Captain Seton represented “the whole bulk of the Joasmees desirous of
returning to their former mercantile pursuits.”
Whatever may have been their disposition in that respect, they had
not the power of gratifying it. In 1808, when their depredations first
extended to the Indian Seas, Shaikh Sultan, the Joasmee Chief, possessed
only the port of Ras-ool-Khyma, and his power being shortly after
completely superseded, by the appointment of Wahabee officers to the
charge of districts throughout his territories, he was inveigled up to
Deriah, and imprisoned by the Wahabee Shaikh. He made his escape,
reached Muskat, and sought the protection of the Imaum. The
Joasmees were rendered independent of their lawful Shaikh, whose
territories were placed under the vicegerency of Hussan bin Ah, the
Joasmee Chief of Ramse, who had acknowledged the supremacy ol the
Wahabee Shaikh, and carried on piracy under his express orders an

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