Page 91 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

CHAPTER VII

‘That execrable sum of all villainies, commonly
called A Slave Trade.’
The Journal - February 12th 1792

r 1HE Eden stayed for three days in Muscat. In addition to
the two seamen who died while she was in harbour, a
third man died on the day that she sailed. From Muscat,
Loc 1 crossed the Gulf and spent a week cruising among the
islands off the Persian coast. On the morning of January 10th,
seven large vessels, answering to the description of Joasmi, were
sighted; they were anchored in the narrow passage which formed
a natural harbour protected by shoals and sandbanks, between
Kishm Island, near Bundar Abbas, and the little island of Henjam.
‘All sail was made in chase’, and although ‘the wind was directly
in our teeth’, the flood tide was so strong that the Eden was able
to enter the passage which was about two miles wide. Having
no charts, Loch went up to the masthead, to survey the course.
He sighted a long sandbank but, before the ship could avoid it,
she had run aground; but she was soon afloat again. A pirate
ship which tried to run past her, received ‘a good peppering’, and
the Eden then moved closer to the six vessels which were hugging
the shore but, owing to shoals, she only reached ‘a long gunshot’
from the nearest ship. The Eden then opened her starboard guns
on the pirates, doing considerable damage. The tide changed,
forcing her to get underweigh, and run into the middle passage,
where she anchored in deep water in a position where none of the
pirate vessels could gain the open sea without passing her. Here
she remained ‘with her sails chew’d up at the masthead, all ready
for a start, with the guns clear, and the people at their quarters’.
The pirate ships had many advantages over British men-of-war.
Their draught was less, so they could cruise in shallow water,
they were equipped with two lines of powerful oars, like Roman
triremes, and their captains were familiar with the tangle of shoals
and sandbanks which made a labyrinth of both shores of the Gulf.
7i