Page 99 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

ARAB TRIBES. 5 7

those petty rulers, we involved ourselves in hostilities with the Khan,
who issued orders for the seizure of all English ships which his fleets
might fall in with. A good understanding with the Persian Govern­
ment was in some measure restored on the re-establishment of the
Factory of Bushire in 1776.
The Musical fleet, of which we hear nothing from 1736 to 1769 or 1774,
made its appearance in the latter year, to co-operate in the defence of
Bussora, the reduction of which Kurecm Khan was contemplating, and
effected ; one of the pretexts for which was stated to be the aid which
the Pacha of Bagdad had granted the Imaunj of Muskat, which pre­
vented the Persians from subduing the province of Oman.
Bussora was abandoned by the Persians on the death of Kurecm
Khan, in a. d. 1779, and re-occupied by the Turks. The troubles that
ensued in the interior of Persia on that event left the Gulf uncontrolled.
The decline of the Persian influence may be dated from that period; its
maintenance depended exclusively on the attachment and fidelity of its
tributaries. The contests for superiority which arose between the
different petty States involved the whole Gulf in a state of hostility.
The fleet of the Shaikh of Julfar (Ras-ool-Ivhyma), who was at this
period at war with the Imaum of Muskat, being continually on the
cruise, roused every petty chief to equip armed boats, manned by a
lawless crew, who received no pay, but depended solely on plunder,
which they committed on each other. The Ultoobee Arabs, ambitious
of sharing in the spoils, conquered Bahrein from the Persians, the
possession of which, supported by their allies, they have since main­
tained, with unimportant intermissions, against repeated efforts on the
part of the Persians, assisted by the Joasmees, and of the Imaum of
Muskat, for its recovery and reduction.
We now come to an important era in the history of the Persian Gulf,—
the rise of the Wahabee power, of which mention is first made in the
Bombay Records in 1737. The Persian and Turkish Governments were
at this period in an unsettled state, and but ill calculated to oppose the
progressive ascendancy of that sect.
During the whole of this period, and even up to the year 1797, the
molestation which the British trade experienced in the reign of Kureem
Khan may be attributed to that interference which the Government
exercised in the disputes between the petty States in the Gulf:
whenever we preserved a strict neutrality, we derived every advantage
from the observance of that policy. To piratical depredations it was
not at all exposed, nor can piracy be said to have been systematically
prosecuted by any of the powers up to 1797, except by the Muskat
Arabs during the period of their ascendancy.
The enterprising character of Syud Sultan, the Imaum of Muskat,