Page 157 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

CHAPTER XII

'How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
This the latest parlc we will admit:
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves
Or, like to men proud of destruction,
Defy us to our worst/
Henry the Fifth - Shakespeare *

RUCE had been told by Rahmah the Pirate that the Shaikh
|-£ of Linga was in league with the Joasmi and the Linga
1 3 fleet was to meet some of the pirate ships up the coast above
I
Bushirc. For this reason, when three large ships arrived from
Linga, Bruce and Loch decided to seize them, and to confiscate
their weapons, although they were ostensibly on a peaceful trading
trip. The crews were disarmed, the captains were taken on board
the Eden, and the vessels were anchored alongside her. Loch
admits that ‘the seizure of the vessels may appear strange, they
belonging to a country with which we were at peace’. If by
‘country’, he meant Persia, his action was of small consequence
for the Shaikh of Linga acted independently of the Persian
Government, which would probably have approved of action
aimed at destroying the power of the pirates. The Persian
Government had, in fact, offered to co-operate with the British
against the Joasmi but their object was probably to get possession
of Bahrain and their offer came to nothing. Among the arms
which Loch took from the Linga seamen were swords with the
name ‘Andrea Ferrara’ engraved upon them.
On October 19th, Loch received information that ‘the long
looked for expedition had at last left Bombay, and were soon
expected to arrive in the Gulph’. Next day he weighed anchor
‘with a nice little breeze from the north-west’, and made sail out
of Bushirc harbour. He had with him, a cumbersome convoy,
three Linga ships, a pirate vessel which had been taken by the
Mercury at the top of the Gulf, and the batil in which ‘the old
wakil’ had come to Bushire, the old man himself was in the Eden.
Accompanying the Eden were the Company’s cruisers Mercury
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