March 24. (Sunday).—Speaking on the evidence of its truth, I mentioned its constant efficacy in collecting the multitude, and commanding their attention, which moral discourses never did. This was considered as a reflection on the ministers of Bombay, which distressed me not a little.
Henry Martyn was granted a passage to Arabia and Persia in the Benares, Captain Sealey, one of the ships of the old Indian Navy, ordered to cruise along with the Prince of Wales in the Persian Gulf. At that time the danger was considerable. For a century the Joasmi Arabs, of ‘the pirate coast’ of Oman, had been the terror of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, driving off even the early Portuguese, and confining the Persians, then invulnerable by land, to their own shores. The Wahabee puritans of Islam having mastered them, they added to their own bloodthirsty love of plunder and the slave-trade the fanaticism of Mohammed-ibn-Abdul-Wahab, the ‘bestower of blessings,’ as the name signifies. The East India Company tolerated them, retaining two or three ships of war in the Gulf for the protection of the factories at Gombroon, Bushire, and Busrah. But, in an evil moment, in the year 1797, the Joasmi pirates dared to seize a British vessel. From that hour their fate was sealed, though the process of clearing the southern coast of Asia of pirates and slavers ended only with the accession of Queen Victoria, in the year when Aden was added to the empire. In 1809-10 the Bombay Government expedition, under Commodore John Wainwright, captured their stronghold of Ras-ul-Khymah, delivered our feudatory of Muscat from their terrorism, and gave the Gulf peace for ten years. The two ships of war which conveyed the chaplain missionary with his message of peace to Eastern Arabia and Persia were sent to complete the work of the Wainwright expedition,[44] which had been summoned by Lord Minto to the conquest of Java. Henry Martyn acted as chaplain to the forty-five sailors and twelve artillerymen who formed the European part of the crew of the Benares. After two days at Muscat he tells the story of his voyage:
To Lydia Grenfell
Muscat: April 22, 1811.
My dearest Lydia,—I am now in Arabia Felix: to judge from the aspect of the country it has little pretensions to the name, unless burning barren rocks convey an idea of felicity; but perhaps as there is a promise in reserve for the sons of Joktan, their land may one day be blest indeed.
We sailed from Bombay on Lady-day; and on the morning of Easter saw the land of Mekran in Persia. After another week’s sail across the mouth of the Gulf, we arrived here, and expect to proceed up the Gulf to Bushire, as soon as we have taken in our water. You will be happy to learn that the murderous pirates against whom we were sent, having received notice of our approach, are all got out of the way, so that I am no longer liable to be shot in a battle, or to decapitation after it, if it be lawful to judge from appearances. These pestilent Ishmaelites indeed, whose hand is against every man’s, will escape, and the community suffer, but that selfish friendship of which you once confessed yourself guilty, will think only of the preservation of a friend. This last marine excursion has been the pleasantest I ever made, as I have been able to pursue my studies with less interruption than when ashore. My little congregation of forty or fifty Europeans does not try my strength on Sundays; and my two companions are men who read their Bible every day. In addition to all these comforts, I have to bless God for having kept me more than usually free from the sorrowful mind. We must not always say with Watts, ‘The sorrows of the mind be banished from the place;’ but if freedom from trouble be offered us, we may choose it rather. I do not know anything more delightful than to meet with a Christian brother, where only strangers and foreigners were expected. This pleasure I enjoyed just before leaving Bombay; a ropemaker who had just come from England, understood from my sermon that I was one he might speak to, so he came and opened his heart, and we rejoiced together. In this ship I find another of the household of faith. In another ship which accompanies us there are two Armenians who do nothing but read the Testament. One of them will I hope accompany me to Shiraz in Persia, which is his native country.
We are likely to be detained here some days, but the ship that will carry our letters to India sails immediately, so that I can send but one letter to England, and one to Calcutta. When will our correspondence be established? I have been trying to effect it these six years, and it is only yet in train. Why there was no letter from you in those dated June and July 1810, I cannot conjecture, except that you had not received any of mine, and would write no more. But I am not yet without hopes that a letter in the beloved hand will yet overtake me somewhere. My kindest and most affectionate remembrances to all the Western circle. Is it because he is your brother that I love George so much? or because he is the last come into the number? The angels love and wait upon the righteous who need no repentance; but there is joy whenever another heir of salvation is born into the family. Read Eph. i. I cannot wish you all these spiritual blessings, since they already are all yours; but I pray that we may have the spirit of wisdom and knowledge to know that they are ours. It is a chapter I keep in mind every day in prayer. We cannot believe too much or hope too much. Happy our eyes that they see, and our ears that they hear.
As it may be a year or more before I shall be back, you may direct one letter after receiving this, if it be not of a very old date, to Bombay, all after to Bengal, as usual. Believe me to be ever, my dearest Lydia, your most affectionate,
H. Martyn.