Page 247 - Gulf Precis(II)_Neat

Part VI—Ohap. XLIV.] 225
and cordial relations which formerly subsisted between his late father, Saud
and the British Government, hinting that ho had wished before to open the
correspondence, but had been prevented by Mahomed Ali Pasha.
407. On his arrival at Lnhsa in Octobor 1£41, notwithstanding these
professions, ho prepared a forco, destined (as announced by the Native Agent
at Bahrein) for invasion of Oman, and the siege of Brymi, and to be
commanded by the notorious Syud bin Mutluk. The British Government
having provided for this contingency in its instructions that the Resident
should endeavour to obtain accurate information of Amir Khaled’s move­
ments, and, if he wero preparing for the invasion of Oman, should warn him
of the opposition of tho British Government, and require him to desist from
the undertaking, and good grounds existing for tho belief that the expedition
was now really in contemplation, it was deemed expedient and advisable by
him to despatch a British officer to wait upon the Amir in his camp at Lahsa
(distant seventy miles from the coast!, with written and verbal communica­
tions, indicative of the views of the British Government, to which he replied
that he had not sent, nor entertained any intention of sending, Syud bin
Mutluk into Oman ; and supposing him to have been so disposed, it subse­
quently turned out that he really had not the power; and this was the more
fortuuate as the Maritime Chiefs, although outwardly professing their determi­
nation to maintain their own independence, were known to be secretly carrying
on intrigues and correspondence with him, and as the irregular proceedings
of the Brymi Chiefs in foraying the districts of Syed Humid bin Azan
of Sohar, must have greatly diminished, if not altogether destroyed, the
prospects of any co-operation on tho part of the latter in the event upon
an attack upon Nejd.