Page 9 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

complete with a map of Ras al-Khaymah, constitutes the first paper in this selection.
The British sought the participation of Sayyid Said in the enterprise, and in April
1819 Captain Sadleir was sent to enlist his support which he agreed to give. The
second article in this volume is a brief note on this ally written in August 1819 by a
member of the Council, Francis Warden, obviously for the expeditionary force; at the
same time Warden wrote the sixth paper, a note on the tribes. Warden also sum­
marised all that was known about the main tribes of the Arabian side of the Gulf - in
some cases it was apparently not very much for he puts the birth of Muhammad ibn
Abd al-Wahhab a century earner than in fact it occurred. These documents will all be
found in this volume and are of great importance as the first attempt to write a history
of the area and the basis of all subsequent work in the near total absence of other
sources.
The force sailed in November 1819 and proved a great success. Ras al-Khaymah
and the other pirate strongholds were captured and the shaykhs of the coast sub­
scribed to the General Treaty of Peace of 1830. The chiefs bound themselves and
their subjects to abstain from ‘plunder and piracy’, as distinguished from open and
lawful warfare. However the British realised that the future security of the Gulf would
depend less upon a piece of paper than upon the vigour with which they enforced it A
permanent presence would have to be maintained and to act as a policeman both
topographical and background knowledge have always been required: the papers
printed here were designed to provide this for the men on the spot and for their
masters in Bombay.

The Writers
As has already been remarked, the first document is of particular interest, since it
was compiled as a handbook of all the information available on the ground for the use
of the expeditionary force. The writer, Captain Robert Taylor of the 3rd Bombay
Native Infantry, serving as Assistant Political Agent in Basra, had a personal interest
in the suppression of piracy because in May 1808, while he was working at the
Bushire Residency, his Armenian wife and their infant son were captured by the
Qawasim and sold to a Bahraini merchant for 67 0 Maria Theresa dollars. It was not
until October 1809 that they were ransomed for 1000 dollars. Taylor was also
involved in the preliminary negotiations with Sayyid Said, the task later assumed by
Sadleir. From 1818 until 1843 he was in Iraq, firstly as Assistant Political Agent and
then as Political Agent In 1826 Sayyid Said, in pursuance of an old claim, blockaded
Basra and it fell to Taylor to arrange a peace settlement The following year he
dissuaded the Omani ruler from another expedition to help the piratical Bani Kaab of
Arabistan in a war against the Turks. Despite some early difficulties he worked
closely with Daud Pasha, the last Mamluk hiler of Iraq, and probably encouraged him
in his persistent insubordination towards Constantinople. He was worried that the
Russian victories in the war with Persia which ended with the treaty of Turkmanchai
in 1828 might eventually threaten Iraq and he advocated that the country should
become independent under Daud in alliance with Britain. After Daud was dismissed
in 1831 Taylor urged that British pressure should be used to bring about his restora­
tion to office. In 1838, when it appeared that the army of Muhammad Ali might move
up from Eastern Arabia to Iraq, Taylor hastened to inform Palmerston who instructed
the British Consul General in Cairo to tell the Egyptian ruler that such an action
would greatly displease Britain. At the same time Taylor was ordered to warn the
local Egyptian commander that if he occupied Basra he might be dislodged. Owing to
the family connections of his wife and his long experience of the country, Taylor
was