Page 411 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

UTTOOBEES. 367

an opinion on this occasion, “ that this coalition would succeed, and
ought to be encouraged, as the Wahabee, in gaining the ascendancy,
would order the Muskatees to plunder every vessel they met, as the
Uttoobees and Joasmces had been obliged to do.”
26. Orders having been issued by the British Government for the
attack of the Joasmee vessels in the Gulf, the Shaikhs of Zobara and
Grane required information in respect to the nature of those instruc­
tions, as they were aware of the outrages committed on our trade by the
Wahabees ; and the Uttoobees being their subjects, they wished to know
if the Government had included them in the orders in question. They
explained that the Wahabee Shaikh was daily pressing them to proceed
on a piratical cruise to India; that they had evaded a compliance with
his wishes, and that he had received their excuses, as the Wahabees had
not the power of compelling them to join in their plans, for want of a
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naval force, and for fear of inducing them to retire from Zobara to
Bahrein; but as the Wahabce had set aside the Chief of the Joasmees,
and established his own officers in the Seer principality, they were
apprehensive that they should be obliged to join in their piratical
schemes. These Shaikhs required a direct answer whether, in the event
of their retiring from the main, and withdrawing themselves from the
Wahabee allegiance, the British Government would lend them such
support as would enable them to remain undisturbed at Bahrein,—the
greatest assistance they would require would be a vessel or two for a
short time.
27. Captain Seton urged in strong terms the advantages of such a
connection, in securing the future tranquillity of the Gulf. Their
situation on one side of the Joasmees, and that of Muskat on the other,
held out every prospect of effectually checking this new and pernicious
system, arising out of the avarice and fanaticism of a desperate tribe in
the centre of Nujd, who, reducing their neighbours to poverty and
misery, have made them the unwilling instruments of their robberies
and piracies; that it would be supposing the British Government had
lost sight of those generous principles that had heretofore actuated their
policy, to imply a doubt that they would step forward to rescue
from such abominable slavery those who by their trade had so long
encouraged their Indian produce and manufactures ; that it would be
imagining the British Government to be blind to its own interests to
conceive that it would allow these traders to be drawn into a state of
actual robbery and piracy, preying on their own subjects and allies,
without an effort to prevent it.
28. Cpatain Seton explained on this occasion that the Uttoobees,
carrying on a brisk trade direct from Bahrein to India, without touching
at Muskat, and thus evading the half duties paid by the other States in

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