Page 169 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

The inclusion of the clause about slavery was mainly due to
Captain Pcrronct Thompson, aged thirty-eight, the General’s
interpreter, who drafted the treaty. He was a Methodist from
Yorkshire, whose Swiss ancestors came from Chateau d’Oex.
His parents, strong abolitionists, were friends of Wilbcrforcc.
Thompson, who was first in the Navy and then in the Army, was
not the usual type of military officer; he had very definite political
views and, when in charge at Ras al Khaima, seems to have tried
to instil the local bazaar with his ideas of economics. In 1803, he
was a midshipman, later he was commissioned to the 95th Regi­
ment, and served in Sierra Leone, where he became Governor.
In 1812, he was back in the Army; he was promoted to Captain
in the 50th Foot, and after service in Spain, he was transferred to
the 17th Light Dragoons, who were in India, because he wanted
to learn Arabic. When he sailed for the Persian Gulf as General
Keir’s interpreter; he brought with him, in one of the cruisers, his
wife and four-year-old son. After the fighting, they lived in a
tent on the shore, and Mrs. Thompson wrote the copies of the
treaties. Even from his very sympathetic biography, it is clear
that Thompson was a difficult man to get on with, unpopular
among the East India Company officers, and probably among the
naval officers as well. His opinion of the Navy, at the time of the
treaty, was that they had ‘no ideas of treaties, or of anything less
substantial than an oak plank’. This was the man who was left
in command of the garrison at Ras al Khaima when the main
body of the expedition withdrew in July 1820. Besides com­
manding the troops. Thompson had been appointed ‘Political
Agent for all matters connected with the Arabian tribes’.
The garrison which Thompson commanded consisted of about
1,20b British and Indian troops. Most of the officers of the Indian
troops belonged to the East India Company and resented being
under the command of Thompson, a ‘King’s officer!’ He said of
them, in a letter, ‘when you give them an order, instead of exe­
cuting it, they write you a letter to say why they can’t!’ The
officers themselves complained that Thompson was always inter­
fering. It was not a happy situation, made worse by bad living
conditions, a very trying climate, lack of fresh water, sickness and
disease. In July, owing to the many deaths from illness, Ras al
Khaima was evacuated, and the garrison moved to Kishm island
which had the reputation of being a healthy place. Thompson
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