THE ARAB PIRATES.
[p. 44.]
The Arabs in every age, have been alike distinguished for a spirit of commerce and of plunder: and were early and great navigators, both as merchants and as pirates. In the time of Mahomed there existed a predatory tribe, whose chief is described in the Koran, according to Ebn Haukal,[51] as “the King, who forcibly seized every sound ship.” This empire is said to have been founded prior to the time of Moses; and if the continuance of the same occupations on the spot be a proof of the identity of the people, it may be traced to the Arabs of the present day.
The Portuguese power was often violated by these pirates:[52] and in the same age the English interests in the East were so much endangered by them, that one of the Agents in Persia (who had all indeed successively made representations on the necessity of sending an armed force to destroy them) declared, that “they were likely to become as great plagues in India, as the Algerines were in Europe.”[53] Some of these ships had from thirty to fifty guns:[D] and one of their fleets, consisting of five ships, carried between them one thousand five hundred men.[54] Within the last few years, their attacks have been almost indiscriminate; nor had they learnt to respect even the English colours, as the instance in the text, and the subsequent capture of the Minerva, Captain Hopgood, proved too well. The British government however, knowing the intimate connection of these pirates on the coast with the Wahabee,[55] proceeded in the suppression of the evil with cautious judgment; and when, by the extension of these outrages to themselves, they were driven to vindicate the honour of their flag, and to extirpate their enemies, they regarded all the ports, which had not actually included the British within their depredations, as still neutral; and endeavoured to confine their warfare to reprisals, for specific acts of violence, rather than to commit themselves generally against the Wahabees, by extending the attack to those of that alliance who, amid all their piracies, had yet not violated the commerce of England.
We might indeed thus separate the Joassmee tribe from the Wahabee, for we had already, in a formal treaty, recognised them as an independant power; though perhaps for all other purposes, they might be considered as identified. The strength however of the Joassmees alone was very considerable. The ports in their possession contained, according to a well-authenticated calculation, in the middle of the year 1809, sixty-three large vessels, and eight hundred and ten of smaller sizes; together manned by near nineteen thousand men. This force was increasing; the pirates, in a fleet of fifty-five ships, of various sizes, containing altogether five thousand men, had, after a fight of two days, taken the Minerva, and murdered almost all the crew: in the next month a fleet of seventy sail of vessels, (navigated severally by numbers rising from eighty to one hundred and fifty and two hundred men) were cruizing about the Gulph and threatening Bushire: and the chief of Ras al Khyma (the Roselkeim[56] of the text, p. 44,) whose harbour was almost the exclusive resort of the larger vessels, had dared to demand a tribute from the British government, that their ships might navigate the Persian Gulph in safety. Our forbearance was now exhausted, and an expedition was sent from Bombay, under Captain Wainwright, and Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, of His Majesty’s sea and land forces, to attack the pirates in their ports. The first object was Ras al Khyma. The armament, after a short siege, carried the place by storm, destroyed all the naval equipments, and sparing the smaller vessels, burnt the fifty large ships which the harbour contained. They proceeded to the ports of the Arab pirates on the Persian coast, and completed the destruction of all their means of annoyance. They then attacked Shinass, one of their harbours on the Indian ocean. The defence of this place was most heroical; and was conducted indeed for the Joasmees, as was subsequently learnt, by a favourite and confidential general of Saood Ibn Abdool Uzzeer, the chief of the Wahabees. When on the third day of the siege, the few survivors were called upon to surrender, they replied, that they preferred death to submission; and when the towers were falling round them, they returned upon their assailants the hand-grenades and fireballs before they could burst. Twice Lieutenant-Colonel Smith ceased firing, to endeavour to spare the unavailing effusion of their blood; till at length, when they were assured of being protected from the fury of the troops of our ally the Imaum of Muscat, which had co-operated with us, they surrendered to the English.
The expedition then scoured all the coast a second time, to destroy any fragments of that pirate power, against which it was directed; and extirpated in every quarter all the means of annoyance which the Joassmees possessed. There was indeed another force of another tribe, which might eventually grow up into a formidable enemy; but this was distinctly under the protection of the Wahabee, who had invested its chief with the title of Sheik al Behr, or “Lord of the Sea;” and till it marked its hostility to us by joining in the attacks upon our commerce, it was judged expedient not to confound it in one indiscriminate warfare; but rather to open a communication with this particular chief, and through him to the Wahabee himself, advising the one to prohibit the piracies of his dependants, and requiring the other to respect the flag of England. In answer the Wahabee observed, “The cause of the hostilities carrying on between me and the members of the faith, is their having turned away from the Book of the Creator, and refused to submit to their own prophet Mahomed. It is not therefore those of another sect, against whom I wage war, nor do I interfere in their hostile operations, nor assist them against any one; whilst under the power of the Almighty, I have risen superior to all my enemies.” * * * “Under these circumstances, I have deemed it necessary to advise you that I shall not approach your shores, and have interdicted the followers of the Mahomedan faith and their vessels, from offering any molestation to your vessels: any of your merchants therefore, who may appear in, or wish to come to my ports, will be in security; and any person on my part who may repair to you, ought in like manner to be in safety.” * * * “Be not therefore elated with the conflagration of a few vessels, for they are of no estimation in my opinion, in that of their owners, or of their country. In truth then war is bitter; and a fool only engages in it, as a poet has said.”
The want of timber has always been felt so much by the people of the two Gulphs, and of the Western coast of the Indian ocean, that a check on their supplies from the Malabar coast, which Brigadier-General Malcolm very seasonably suggested, will probably keep down the future growth of the pirate power. The fleet of the Soldan of Egypt, which was destined to relieve Diu, was formed of Dalmatian timber, transported overland to the arsenals of Suez;[57] and even some of the houses at Siraff, on the Gulph of Persia,[58] were formed of European wood. In the seventeenth century, the Arabs of Muscat, who subsequently formed connections on the Malabar coast to procure timber, obtained permission from the King of Pegu to build ships in the ports of his country.[59] If therefore the importation of foreign wood were cut off, the Arabs could hardly, without extreme difficulty, maintain a naval force.