Page 111 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

BRITISH POLICY IN THE PERSIAN GULF. 69

The season of the pearl fishery having, owing to the establishment
of the truce,* passed over with unusual peace and tranquillity, it was
renewed for eight months on the 13th April 1836, with undisguised
satisfaction by the respective chiefs, and again on the 15th April of the
following year. In September of the same year the Joasmee Chief des­
patched a confidential Agent, by name Mahomed bin I muz, to wait
upon the Resident, for the purpose of intimating his desire that there
should be a total cessation of fighting at sea, and that a general agree­
ment should be entered into by the chiefs on the Arabian Coast to con­
fine their wars upon each other entirely to the land, with the under­
standing that any aggression at sea should be immediately treated by
the British Government as an act of piracy, and redress enforced
accordingly ; in fact that the truce, instead of being established for six
months, should be made perpetual.
The Shaikh’s Agent explained that his master was led to make this
request from the apprehension that on the lapse of the term of the truce,
the Beniyas (who were little employed in trading pursuits) would take
advantage of his vessels being scattered, in the prosecution of their
trading voyages, to attack them individually, and unprepared. The
Resident replied to this communication that the British Government
could not, for reasons which were explained to the Agent, without its
special sanction and authority, be made a party to an agreement
which would cast upon it the onus and responsibility of being the
arbiter in every dispute, and settlement of endless claims ; moreover,
;
the conflicting interests of the other parties appeared to offer an insuper­ I
able bar to their concurrence, and it was at all events necessary, in the
first instance, to learn their sentiments upon the subject. In I83S, on
the Resident’s making a tour of the Arabian Coast, Shaikh Sultan bin
Suggur not only expressed his earnest desire for a renewal of the truce,
but added that it would afford him sincere pleasure if it could be

and is strongly corroborative of the reports, which came in from all quarters, of the joy and
satisfaction diffused among the inhabitants of the whole line of the Arabian Coast of this Gulf,
on the intelligence reaching them of the establishment of the truce.
* Among the parties to this truce the Chief of Bahrein was not included. He was too
tangible, and too well convinced how deeply his interests would be affected by any collision
with British authority and influence in this quarter to render it probable that he would risk
any deviation from that commendable and peaceable line of conduct which had previously
distinguished him, at least as far as his general maritime pursuits had been concerned, Inde-
pendently of the above considerations, other reasons existed for the Bahrein Chief not beino-
invited to join the truce. It was known at the time that His Highness the Imaum entertain­
ed hostile intentions against the island, and it w'as feared, as a member of the truce, the
Shaikh might have claimed the interposition of the British Government to prevent his bein®
attacked. Afterwards arose the irreconcileable feud between himself and Esai bin Tarif, and
subsequently the family quarrels, all of which rendered it expedient that the British G overn-
ment should keep itself aloof from interference as much as possible.

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