'Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government' [‎72] (114/733)

BRITISH POLICY IN THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
demand redress at the hands of the third party, or guarantee for the
maintenance of the conditions of the truce inviolate; and these condi
tions are, with the perfect knowledge of all, only held to apply to
aggressions on the sea by one boat upon another, and not to those cases
where boats, drawing up on shore in the creeks and backwaters, are
attacked and robbed by the Bedouins. The interference of the Resident
towards redress in such cannot be claimed. Circumstances may
possibly arise, calling for the temporary suspension of the operation
of the restrictive line, and this contingency forms the only objection to
imposing any restraint of this nature on the Arabs with whom we have
treaties, arising out of the impossibility of exerting a similar control
over other States not so bound, the settlement of whose disputes with the
former would be involved in intricacy and difficulty.
In cases where lawless and unprovoked aggressions have been made
at sea by such a power, not authorised by open war, and the remon
strances and mediatory interposition of the British authority have failed
to procure redress for the injured and aggravated chief, justice and good
policy would demand that the latter should be permitted to have
recourse to his own means to exact it; and further, that the British
authorities, having exerted their influence without effect to bring his
opponent to a proper sense of his injustice, should restrain any of the
other chiefs, subscribers to the truce, from interfering in any way, but
certainly from affording his assistance to that opponent.
Such a precedent has not up to the present date occurred, and
permission* has, on the other hand, ever been denied to any chief,
* Two examples may here be cited. In the middle of the year 1835, when the Shaikh of
Amulgavine expressed his wish to assist the people of Charak, it was assumed as a point with him,
that whatever claims of superiority he might formerly have possessed over the Charak people,
now they had located themselves in Persia they had become Persian subjects, and conse
quently he could not, situated as he was, have any right to interfere actively in their quarrels.
And again, in October 1843, when three of the Shaikhs of the Coast of Oman (Sultan bin Sug-
gur, Suggur bin Sultan, and Muktoom bin Butye) applied for permission to afford aid to the
ex-Chief Abdoolla bin Ahmed of Bahrein, in regaining his lost authority over that island, it was
well known at the time that overtures had been made by the lattcr's opponents, Mahomed
bin Khaleefa and his colleagues, to the Shaikhs of Aboothabee (Klialeefa bin Shakboot) and
Amulgavine (Abdoolla bin Rashid), and that these chiefs were prepared to join them. A posi
tive refusal was therefore imperatively called for, and was made in the following terms to the
ex-chief through whom the application had been made " It is not hidden from you that
Mahomed bin Khaleefa, Esai bin Tarif, and their colleagues, being heads of tribes inhabiting
Bahrein, the British Government could not interfere in their quarrel with you ; but Sultan
bin Suggur and the other chiefs mentioned have no connection or interest in the war, and you
are aware that if they become your active allies, Mahomed bin Khaleefa and Esai bin Tarif
would undoubtedly immediately crave the assistance of Khaleefa bin Shakboot and other
chiefs. The result would be confusion throughout the Gulf, and enmity between all the
tribes ; moreover, no benefit would accrue to yourself.
For these reasons, it is not possible that I should grant my concurrence to the inter-