Page 125 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

had been captured some time ago, and was probably kept alive
to help with the guns. The prisoners reported that there had
been heavy casualties among the pirates. After this successful
engagement, the Eden sailed for Muscat, which she reached on
May 15th.
In Muscat, Loch met Captain G. Forster Sadlier, of I-I.M.’s 47th
Regiment, who had been sent by Lord Hastings, the Governor-
General of India, on a mission to the Sultan of Muscat, and to
Ibrahaim Pasha, who commanded the Egyptian forces in Arabia.
The object of the mission was to persuade the Sultan and the
Pasha to co-operate together with the English against the Joasmi
pirates and the Wahabis. On his way to Muscat, Sadlier went
on board the Conway, in which Colquhoun was travelling to
Bombay, and was told that, for some months, there had been no
‘depredations by the pirates’, and communications between Basra
and Katif were now open.
When Sadlicr’s ship anchored in Muscat harbour on May 17th,
the concussion from the saluting guns caused his thermometer to
fall and smash - perhaps a bad omen! Sadlier had several inter­
views with the Sultan; he met the Sultan’s brother, Salim, who
had lately returned from Persia, where he had been seeking help
against the Joasmi, and the Sultan’s Minister, whom he described
as drowsy and lethargic. But he failed completely to persuade
the Sultan to agree to co-operate with the Pasha. Whenever the
Pasha’s name was mentioned, the Sultan ‘expressed himself with
much vehemence’, reviling the Pasha for his acts of cruelty against
the Arabs. He told Sadlier that ‘to allow his troops to associate
on shore in concert with the Turkish army’ might be fatal to him.
Said Ruete, in his biography of Said bin Sultan, says that ‘the
Sultan had nothing in common with the Egyptians, but every­
thing to fear at their hands’. He absolutely refused to allow his
troops to take part with the Egyptians in any operations. Sadlier
pointed out to the Sultan the advantages to Muscat and other
States in the Gulf, which would result from a combined effort by
the British, the Sultan and the Egyptians against the pirates and
the Wahabis, but the Sultan remained adamant. He told Sadlier,
as a further argument against combining with the Egyptians, that
some of the pirate chiefs were already making overtures to him,
and were prepared to submit to him. He considered that his
forces, and those of the British, were fully capable of dealing with
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