Page 108 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

66 BRITISH POLICY IN THE PERSIAN
GULF.
enforce adherence to the provisions it contained, from the great t
!
and difficulty attending it, and the irritation and ill feeling it excited *
No occasion has even arisen for calling into operation Articled vr
and VII. es V1-
The contending chiefs have been occasionally reminded of the
cxist-
ence of such an Article as the eighth, and that it maybe enforced • but
it has always been considered desirable to avoid all minute inquiries
regarding the treatment of people who may have been captured in the
course of hostilities, from the extreme difficulty of substantiating the
facts, which would be invariably denied, and the destruction
of an
enemy palliated or accounted for by the excuse of self-defence, the
ardour of the combat, or the obstinacy of the opponent.
The enterprise and resources of the piratical tribes having once been
directed into a legitimate channel, and gradually given rise to habits
of honest industry, and the more lawful and peaceable pursuits of
civilized life, it became a great desideratum to prevent the occurrence
of any accidents, such as petty wars among themselves, which, from
affording an opening and pretext to the evil disposed, have a decided
tendency to degenerate into piracy, and a general plunder of all
defenceless vessels.
Towards the attainment of this end, it was in May 1835, immediately
subsequent to the outbreak of the Beniyas Tribes in that year,
suggested, that a material check might be given to this evil, were the
several tribes prohibited from cruising with their war-boats in the track
of the Gulf trade, lying between the Persian Coast and the islands of
Surdy and Bomosa, and thus a neutral ground established, upon which
the maritime Arabs would be precluded from carrying on hostilities
under any circumstances.
In January 1836 it was personally intimated by the Resident, under
authority from Government, to the several chiefs from Debaye to Ras-
ool-Khyma, that the excursions of their war-boats must be thenceforth
strictly confined within a line drawn from Shaum to within ten miles
south of Bomosa, and thence onward through the island of Seir
Aboneid; and that the commanders of the vessels of the Gulf squadron
had been instructed to seize any of the boats found on the hither side, or

* Moreover, the refusal to grant registers would have produced no good effect, but, 0,1 ^
contrary, have tended to confound ships employed in authorised hostilities with those engog
in piratical depredations; and the non-observance of the conditions considered as a c ^
piracy was of no great importance, for piracies, since the formation of this Treat}, iave
been committed in boats of the class employed in the fishery, which did not q|i of
and usually escaped to the creeks,—at all events avoided our cruisers, leaving t e in
their punishment to be sought at the hands of the chief who acknowledge tiero
from whose territory they had last set out, or in whose territory they had taken re g •

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*