Page 63 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

QasimIPiracy and General Treaty of Peace 53

promise for his personal safety (aman) in the terms of surrender.
After reconsideration, Kcir released Hasan, which immediately
eased tension. The Qawasim, many of whom had fled inland,
ventured back into the town to purchase from the occupying force
the rice and dates they had left behind.14
Keir had also been instructed to destroy vessels in the QasimI
ports on the Persian littoral. From information he received from
the charge d'affaires at Tehran and the resident at Bushahr, Keir
concluded that the charges against these ports were weak, and that
British interference on that shore would greatly strain relations
with the Qajar rulers of Persia. He therefore rejected this part of
his orders and convinced Bombay that he was right.15
Some of the articles of the Treaty dealt with ships’ papers and a
flag to identify the ‘pacificatcd Arabs’. Two others condemned the
killing of prisoners and traffic in slaves as acts of piracy. As
Bombay pointed out, there was no provision for enacting any of
these, and none were, in fact, ever enforced. The general hopes to
abolish piracy were stated in the three remaining articles:
Article 1. There shall be a cessation of plunder and piracy by land and sea
on the part of the Arabs, who are parties to this contract, forever.
Article 2. If any individual of the people of the Arabs contracting shall
attack any that pass by land or sea of any nation whatsoever, in the way of
plunder and piracy and not of acknowledged war, he shall be accounted
the enemy of all mankind and shall be held to have forfeited both life and
goods. An acknowledged war is that which is proclaimed, avowed, and
ordered by government against government; and the killing of men and
taking of goods without proclamation, avowal, and the order of a
government, is plunder and piracy.
Article 7. If any tribe, or others, shall not desist from plunder and piracy,
the friendly Arabs shall act against them according to their ability and
circumstances, and 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.
In article 7, the British were placed in the role of mediator, a
principle which proved acceptable to the Arab signatories. It
should be noted that in article 2, an attempt was made to define
piracy by a distinction which applied to the European situation,
perhaps, but did not accurately reflect the case for inter-Arab
warfare. Keir’s understanding of the latter actually had more
depth, as evidenced in his debate with Bombay over the treaty and
the peace settlement, summarized in two major points as follows:
1. Keir had been instructed to devise a system of maritime
regulations which would prevent the recurrence of piracy. To
Bombay’s protest that his stipulations for ships’ papers were