Page 490 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

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446 WAIJABEES.

despatched to Koweit, Mohumrah, and other places, for the purpose of
collecting grain and provisions.
Strong remonstrances, however, with His Highness Mahomed Ali
Pacha, from the British Ministry at home, as well as those of the
British authority in the Guir with Korshid Pacha, had the effect of
inducing the Egyptian Government to postpone, and eventually actual-
ly abandon, the fulfilment of its plans of aggrandisement.
Syud bin Mootluk, who during the lifetime of Ameer Toorkey re­
sided at Brymee, as his Naib or deputy, and who
a. d. 1839.
possessed great personal influence among the
Arabian Iribes, as also a perfect knowledge of their various and
conflicting interests, having been removed by Fysul bin Toorkey, the
now deposed Wahabee Chief, joined the Egyptian commander, and
was by him despatched to Ras-ool-Khyma, to persuade the chiefs on the
Coast of Oman to acknowledge the authority of Mahomed Ali in reality,
but ostensibly that of his tool Khalid, the now nominal head of the Waha­
bee sect. This individual contrived, by a mixture of threats and promises,
to persuade the Joasmee Chief to unite with him in requiring the Beni
Naeem, who had lately got possession of Brymee, to surrender it to the
Nujdees: but these nobly replied that they would rather bury them­
selves in its ruins than give it up, and lost no time in applying to the
Beniyas Chief, as also Syud Humood bin Azan of Sohar, for support to
meet the common enemy. This, call was immediately responded to by
the latter, who instantly sent his brother Ghes, with two hundred men,
to reinforce the garrison of Brymee.
The perseverance and resolution displayed by the Agents of Maho­
med Ali Pacha in forwarding his schemes of conquest, and the constant
success which had hitherto attended the progress of his General, began
to exercise a powerful influence over the tribes in this quarter,—an in­
fluence which nothing less than a positive assurance of protection from
the British Government against his further encroachments could suffice
to counteract. A protest in form was therefore entered by the British
authorities, against the agreement between the Bahrein Shaikh and the
Egyptian Agent, as having been formed in direct opposition to the
assurances given by His Highness Mahomed Ali to Her Britannic
Majesty’s Government, and the several Maritime Chieftains of Oman
were invited to certify in writing their determination to cultivate more
sedulously their relations with the British Government, to abide by its
wishes and instructions, and to resist to the last extremity all attempts of
Korshid Pacha to subjugate them.
Shaikh Sultan bin Suggur was called to account for his extraordinary
conduct with reference to Syud. bin Mootluk. He in
and vacillating
earnest in his promises, but that his
reply urged that he had been

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