Page 200 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

I (>() The Origins of the United Arab Emirates
together with K. 15. ‘Abel al-Razzaq (who was later to succeed
him as Residency Agent), went ashore to summon Hamad to the
ship. At first, Hamad sent word to Pridcaux to meet him on
shore, refusing to go on board the Lawrence. Later, he changed
his mind and asked for a letter of safe conduct before he boarded
the vessel. When this was issued, lie changed his mind yet again,
categorically refusing to board the ship and declaring himself willing
to pay a fine for the abduction of the slave. Pridcaux was greatly
concerned at these insults to British prestige: Hamad had deliberately
ignored the signal (the raising of the Resident’s Hag) to go on
board; and lie had flouted the regulations about the slave trade.
Pridcaux was convinced that, if Hamad’s disregard of the treaties
with Britain should go unpunished, the Political Resident would
gradually lose control of the villages of' the Shimayliyyah.6 The
least of Pridcaux’s concerns was Fujairah’s wish to secede from
Sharjah.
The Resident consulted the Senior Naval Officer, who was at
Muscat on HMS Triad; HMS Cyclamen was also not far away.
Together the two men decided, after obtaining the requisite permis­
sion from the Naval Commandcr-in-Chief, on a suitable form of
punishment: Hamad's fort would be bombarded and, if necessary,
his property would be seized. The headman of Fujairah was given
three hours notice to obey Pridcaux, failing which his fort would
be fired on. Hamad refused to acknowledge the ultimatum, and
accordingly the seaward faces of three of his towers were destroyed
by shell-fire on 20 April. Although Pridcaux claimed ‘there was
no loss of life directly caused by the bombardment’, he admitted
that a report reached him that a slave in the fort had been
severely wounded, and that Hamad’s daughter-in-law, ill to begin
with, had died while being transported out of the fort.7 But Hamad
suffered further chastisement. One of his dhows, said to be worth
10,000 rupees, was seized by the Cyclamen and the Triad in Khawr
Fakkan and released only when he agreed to pay a fine of 1200
rupees for having enslaved the Baluchi girl,8 plus 300 rupees because
his men in Gharayfah had refused to help launch a boat of the
Lawrence that had turned broadside on 19 April.
The next and last time this violent form of punishment was
meted out was in 1930, when Shaykh Sultan bin Salim of Ras
al-Khaimah refused to give the RAF permission to base a petrol
barge in his shaykhdom; the pearling fleet of Ras al-Khaimah
was then seized, after which Sultan capitulated. Although the next
decade saw the establishment by Britain of the imperial air-route
and its securing of oil concessions for Petroleum Concessions Ltd,
bombardment was never used again to enforce its authority in
! the area. British commitments and involvements in the Arab world
had bv then become so embroiled, especially as regards Palestine,