Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎141r] (282/879)

Bennett 8
instrument that “ the peace now concluded
shall be watched over by the British Govern-
ment." Once only did England divide her
responsibility in regard to any of the lands
adjacent to the Gulf, and that was when, in
1862, she associated herself with France in
guaranteeing the independence of the Sultan
of Muscat — a compact whose influence we
were, to say the least, fully conscious of
during a certain exciting episode on the
Oman coast three years ago. The Anglo-'
French declaration of 1862, however, has
in no serious degree modified our rela
tions towards the rulers of Muscat, who for
more than a century have been in intimate
dependence on the British Government, looking
to that Government for help in time of internal
Commotion or of pressure from their enemies;
and accepting the counsels of British officers
as those of friends and protectors. But for the
prompt assistance of the Bombay Government,
who sent ships of war to Muscat, and intervened
between the chief and his turbulent followers;
the long reign of Seyid Said would have come
to an untimely end in 1829, when he had gone
to Zanzibar to suppress a rising. Similar
episodes, similarly ended, occurred in 1832
and 1852, and it was entirely due to the political
and military support of the Bombay Govern
ment that this Imam was able to retain pos-
session of his territory during a feign of thirty-
five years. It was by British influence too,
that a war of succession to the Zanzibar and
Muscat territories was prevented at his death,
and that the division was effected which gave!
Zanzibar an independent position.
The Slave TRADE.
In her efforts to put down the slave trade
in Persian waters England has had no help
from any of the Powers who seem to, envy
the position she has gained there. These
first took definite shape in a treaty con
cluded with Seyid Said, the ruler of Muscat;
in 1822, for the suppression of the traffic in
slaves by means of search of suspected vessels,
the line of search being extended so as to
include Kutch and Wathiawar, with which the
trade had been carried'on much too freely to
satisfy the conscience of the Company. The
treaty of 1836,establishing the Maritime Truce,
was a Step in the same direction, but it was
interpreted as forbidding, not the slave trade
generally, but kidnapping only, and an exten
sive trade was still carried on from the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. with native States in
Western India. How extensive it was may be
gathered-from the fact that in the early thirties
—of course before the British conquest of Sind—
the annual imports of slaves into Karachi alone
amounted to between 700 and 800. In this
matter, as in others, we hastened slowly. It
was by a series of engagements, ending with
one concluded by. Sir Bartie Frere, in 1873)
that we secured the full co-operation of the
Imams of Muscat in our effort to clear the
Gulf of slaves, and by a similarly gradual
process we enlisted the Trucial Chiefs in the
work, and at length acquired the full right to
detain, search, and confiscate within an ade
quate area vessels engaged in the forbidden
traffic. The efforts to secure the co-operation
of the Shah’s Government in the enterprise
began at Teheran in 1848, when the British
representative had to be content with a com-
promise, for the Shah, unable to resist the
opposition of the priests to the total aboli
tion of the traffic, would only consent to a
prohibition of slave importation by sea.
Even this concession, he explained; oddly
enough, he only made " on account of the
goodness of Farrant Sahib,” Lieut.-Colonel
Farrant being the British agent with whom the
negotiations were conducted. Shortly after
this, the Persian Government agreed that both
the Queen’s and the Company’s warships
should, for eleven years, be permitted to search
Persian vessels for slaves—an agreement which
was renewed and extended by the Treaty of
Paris in 1857, and re-affirmed in 1882 in a
treaty empowering British cruisers to visit and
detain merchant vessels under the Persian flag
engaged in, or reasonably suspected of being
engaged in, the slave trade. If our efforts to
keep the Gulf free from the curse of slavery
have fallen short of the success that we have
hoped for, it has not been through lack of
vigilance, either in the old days when, with
Bassadore as their headquarters, the Indian
Navy squadron kept watch and ward against
slavers, or, in more recent times, when British
men-of-war have had to see slavers plying
with impunity under the protection of a flag on
which red, white, and blue—on the Gulf, at all
events—read for something "different from
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. This is not
an occasion for speaking all that may be on
one’s mind on a subject which cannot be
discussed freely without jarring upon the
.susceptibilities of a friendly nation. But this
at least may be said. Ten years ago,
M. Deloncle, the leader of the Colonial party
in the French Chamber, who, as we have seen,
complained that England had, without a
shadow of right, constituted herself the general
arbiter and guardian of the Gulf, proposed to
meet her there by sending^a French consular
agent "to open a register of French proteges
for all that region.” Two years later a French
consular agent was accredited to Muscat; the
register recommended by M. Deloncle has been
opened, and Arabs with slaving propensities
have freely resorted to registration as French
proteges, in order to avoid search and detention
by British ships of war.
NAVALZSERVICE in the Gulf.
The work of policemen of the Gulf may be
less arduous now than it was in the old days,
but the spirit of piracy is latent, and a break in
the continuity of British vigilance would be
followed by a return of the old disorders.
The beneficial effects of our past policy in this
regard are frequently seen in the manumission
at the Consulate of Muscat of slaves claiming
their freedom under Sir Bartie Frere’s Treaty,
and there is but one opinion as to what the
result of slackened vigilance on the part of
British naval officers in the Gulf would be.
Thereis yet another service which England
has rendered to civilisation in the Persian
Gulf—the survey of its coasts and waters.
This was systematically commenced in 1789
by officers of the old Indian Navy, who
surveyed the Gulf and the Shat-el-Arab
as far as Bussorah, as well as the coast near
Muscat. The’work seems then to have been
suspended, but it was taken up again in 1820,
and was continued without interruption for
nine years. Every officer engaged in it broke
down, Lieut. Low tells us—a fact which will
surprise no one who knows the climatic con
ditions under which naval service in the Gulf
is performed. Things have, let us hope,
improved since the time when eight commo
dores in succession had to be appointed in
fifteen years to the command of the Gulf
station—serving on the average a little over half
the regulation period of three years—of whom
four died at their posts, while four-fifths of the
officers had to take sick leave. In this con-
nection I should like to refer to a question that