Page 484 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

Notes to Chapter Eight

26 See Kelly, Britain, pp. 13911.
27 After the tribal leaders of Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, ’Ajman and Umm
al Qaiwain had signed preliminary treaties of truce in the weeks
following the surrender of Hasan bin Rahmah of Jazirah al Hamra’ on 9
December 1819, Keir ordered a squadron to search every port on the
coast between Ra s al Khaimah and Dubai for warlike vessels, strong
fortifications, and British Indian prisoners. Several dozens of vessels,
worth about 300,000 Rupees, were destroyed or impounded and handed
over to the Omanis. See Kelly, Britain, pp. 154ff.
28 Sultan bin Saqr’s authority as shaikh of all the Qawasim was reduced
firstly by the emergence of a rival, Hasan bin Rahmah, who threatened
British shipping from Bandar ’Abbas against Sultan bin Saqr's will,
even after a treaty had been signed between the Qawasim and the
British in February 1806, secondly by the Wahhabis, who allowed him
only to rule over Ra’s al Khaimah and then took him into custody in 1809
in their capital Dara’iyah while Hasan bin Rahmah ruled in Ra’s al
Khaimah. Sultan bin Saqr escaped eventually and assumed his
authority as Ruler of Sharjah before the major confrontation with the
British in 1819/20. He had tried to co-operate with the British authorities
by making them appreciate that the Qawasim deserved to have their
share in the Gulf trade restored to them, and he was the first Ruler to
tender his unconditional surrender in January 1820. The British were
eager to see him reinstated as the Ruler over all the Qawasim of the Arab
coast.
29 Since no instructions had arrived from the Presidency in Bombay by the
time the British fleet had to leave the coast of Ra’s al Khaimah for
reasons of safety in the approaching season of strong north winds, Keir
himself had to take the decision of how to turn the military success of
early December into a political one. Most of the text of the treaty which
he presented to the Rulers was, in fact, drafted by his interpreter,
Captain T. Perronet Thompson. The latter had struck up friendships
with many of the shaikhs and the people of Ra’s al Khaimah. See Moyse-
Bartlett, Pirates, pp. 99ff, with the text of the "General Treaty with the
Arab Tribes of the Persian Gulf’ on pp. 239-41. A photographic
reproduction of the signed and sealed Arabic version of this treaty is
held by the Centre for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi.
30 ". . . an arrangement for this purpose shall take place between the
friendly Arabs and the British at the time when such plunder and piracy
shall occur." (Moyse-Bartlett, Pirates, Appendix, p. 240). For full details
of the signators of the 1820 treaty, see Lorimer, Histor., p. 671, and Kelly.
Britain, p. 156ff.
31 The clause about slavery was written into the agreement at the personal
insistence of translator, Captain T. Perronet Thompson, who in later
years often pointed out as an MP and publicist, that this was the first

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