Page 689 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

SLAVE TRADE. 645

vessels from visiting his possessions in Africa, and that the British
Government was prepared to enforce such an interdict by the seizure
of all boats attempting to break through or evade it, it would certainly
check to a great extent the traffic in human flesh, so far as they were
concerned, as the price of slaves in the Muskat market is probably too
high to allow of their being exported from that port for sale in the
Persian Gulf at a remunerating profit.
Jt ought not, however, to be concealed that such a measure as the one
suggested would be very restricted in its operation, and afford but a
small mitigation to the general trade in slaves in the Persian Gulf. The
total number of native vessels belonging to the independent Arabian
Chiefs visiting Zanzibar and the Arabian Coast does not exceed eight, a
number which cannot carry one-seventh part of the slaves said to be
annually disposed of at Bussora and in the other ports of this sea.*
The traffic in question is principally carried on by the boats belonging
to Soor and other places between Ras-ool-Iiud and Muskat, subject to
His Highness the Imaum, and which of course, as well as all Persian
and Turkish vessels, would be quite unrestricted by any measure of
* Extract of a Letter from Colonel Robertson to Government, No. 35 P. D., dated 4th March
1842.—“ Captain Ilenncll’s plan for enlisting the Imaum in our attempt to hinder the Arab
Chiefs from trading in slaves appears to me to be merely calculated to throw the trade into
the Imauin’s hands.
“ To put down the Slave Trade, therefore, it is useless to check the carriers of one-seventh
part of the trade, while the carriers of the other six-sevenths are not checked. It is obvious,
indeed, that such a check would only transfer the other seventh to the hands and enterprise
of other persons, and that the trade itself would not be checked. Whatever measure, there­
fore, we adopt, to put down this trade, ought to have a general application and bearing. A
check on one individual, and not on all traders, should be deemed no check at all. But to
obtain a right for stopping all traders through treaties and negotiations would be an endless
task, and in many cases one that is altogether impossible. I am decidedly of opinion, there­
fore, that the shortest and simplest form of check we shall ever be able to impose is to obtain
possession of the seaports, or line of Coast of Africa, whence the slaves are exported, and to
prevent the arrival there of slaves from the interior, or the sale of them. Such a position
would be but little expensive, I think, in comparison to the system of search at sea, and in
harbours (even of African harbours), and would enable us, without a single treaty with any of
the rulers of the Arabian Coast aud Persian Gulf, to put down the whole traffic through its
present channel.
“ IIow such a command of the African ports is to be acquired I am unable to say. Possi­
bly it may be deemed impracticable ; but if it is not, it presents, in ray estimation, the most
effectual method of carrying our point.
“ Lord Palmerston’s offer to the Imaum of Muskat of £2,000 a year for three years
appears to me to be totally inadequate to cover the losses which that chieftain would sustain
by the abolition of the Slave Trade ; for almost all his subjects are slaves, and he sells as well
as exports them to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. We should therefore consider the whole
value of his subjects annually sold by him, and not merely the custom duties of his ports,
exacted from other slave dealers, if we adopt a pecuniary principle of remuneration for
inducing him to abandon his Slave Trade.”