Page 21 - Gulf Precis (V)_Neat

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Invested and reduood to ruins, making prisoners tlie Wahabi Chief and
other members of liis family. The inhabitants of the ill-fated city were at the
same time removed to Uasa which it was determined to establish as the future
capital of this part of Arabia under the licni-Khalid tribe. The Turkish troops
then marched towards the shores of the Persian Gulf, intending as it was
understood to retaliate upon the piratical tribes for their lawless and sanguinary
proceedings towards the subjects of the Porto.
31. The Supremo Government bad for somo time contemplated an oxpedi-
Seeond Britiih expedition againit the Joatmil tiOD OH a largO SCale against tllC Joasmi
mnder General Ketr-j.D. J820. pirates, and on hearing of the arrival
of the Turkish Army on the Arabian Coast the Governor-General resolved on
communicating with Ibrahim Pasha for the purpose of learning whether the
Naval and Military forces at the command of the Bombay Government could
be applied in conjunction with the Turkish Army for the comploto reduction of
the Joasmis. Captain Sadlierwas entrusted with the delivery of the Governor-
General's despatch to Ibrahim Pasha. An account of his mission, and the
journey he undertook to accomplish has been published.

32. The British expedition sailed from Bombay under the command of
General Keir about the oud of 1819, and, with the co-operation of the Imam
of Maskat, destroyed or captured all tbo vessels and the principal strongholds
of the piratical Chieftains. The dread inspired by the success of the British
arms in the reduction of Ras-ul-khyma led to the more powerful Arab Sheikhs
sending offers of unqualified submission to General Keir. On the 8th January
1820 a general Treaty of Peace was concluded with nearly all the Chiefs of the
Maritime Arabs in the Gulf, the provisions of which have sinco been more or
less respected.

33. The Amir Abdullah was sont prisoner to Constantinople and there
Amir Abdullah e*nt priiouer to Conzlantinople decapitated. So C.Omplete W3S til© OVOr-
and deeapitattd-js20. throw of the Wahabi power, that an
historical sketch of the sect drawn up by Mr. Francis Warden, Member of
Council at Bombay about the year 1820, concludes in the following terms :—
“ Thus rose and foil, it is to he hoped never to rise again, the extraordinary sect of the
Wahabis, undor whose protection and encouragement maritime depredations were carried
oa in the Gulf ami in the Indian Seas with a degree of success, audacity, and barbarity, which
baa boon surpassed only by the atrocities of the Algerines in Europe."

VII. Eesurrection of the Wahabis under Turki, 1824—1830.
34. But Mr, Warden's anticipation was by no means realised. There was
plenty of vitality remaining in the sect,
Btcont(ruction o/ the JVahabi Kingdom.
and after six years of Egyptian domi­
nation a general insurrection was headed by the son of the late Amir, Turki bin
Abdullah, or as he is more commonly called, Turki bin Saud. The Egyptian
Governor was compelled to fall back on Kasim, and Turki was unanimously
proclaimad Sultan of Nejd and restorer of the Wahabi power. The restor­
ation of Deriali was neither practicable nor desirable ; so Turki fixed on the
neighbouring town of ltiadh as his capital and fortified it. These events happened
in 1824, and Wahabism from that time entered on a fresli career of aggressive
expansion. Turki soon opened a correspondence with all the Sheikhs on the
Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, inviting them to renew the relations which
had subsisted between them prior to the overthrow of the Wahabis by Ibrahim
Pasha. As a consequouce of this overture Shoikh Sultan bin Saggar, the
Chiof of the Joasmis, in November 1825 brought to the notice of the British
authority in tbo Persian Gulf his “ great alarm at the increasing powor and in­
trigues of the Wahabis,” and professed himself vory anxious to learn whether
ho might look to tho English for assistauoo in tho event of his endcavouriug
to maintain his independence.