On the 24th October, he again returned to Aden, authorized by his government to enforce the completion of the stipulated agreement.
Captain Haynes’ requisition to the Sultan was met with language and conduct the most violent and insulting. The Sultan refused to allow the plundered property, which had formerly been restored, to be removed from Aden: he issued orders that the “Coote” should not be supplied with water or provisions, and his soldiers fired upon the pinnace of that vessel, without the slightest provocation, slightly wounding two sailors.
In consequence of these outrages the port was blockaded; but ere a month had elapsed the Sultan begged a truce of three days, which he treacherously employed in sending a boat to Saiárah, on the African coast, whence the “Coote” was supplied with provisions, to endeavour, by a bribe of 200 dollars, to induce the Somalies to murder all the English who landed there.
On the 18th December, the H.C. schooner “Mahi” and the barque “Anne Crichton,” laden with coals, arrived; a most significant intimation to the Sultan, had he chosen to accept it, that the British were determined to enforce the fulfilment of the agreement into which he had voluntarily entered.
On the 11th of January a skirmish took place off Seerah Island, between the battery on the Mole, and the schooner “Mahi,” with two gunboats. Two seamen were wounded, and about twenty or thirty of the Arabs put hors de combat. On the 16th of January a force, consisting of H.M.S. “Volage,” 28 guns, under the command of Captain Smith, H.M.S. “Cruizer,” 10 guns, with 300 European and 400 native troops, commanded by Major Baillie, arrived at Aden. A final message was sent to the Sultan, directing him to deliver up the place; but as this was not complied with the town was bombarded and taken by assault. The loss on the side of the British was 15, and on that of the Arabs 150 men, killed and wounded.
The garrison consisted of 700 soldiers from the interior, and the remaining population did not exceed 600, of whom a great proportion were Jews. The Sultan, his family, and a number of the chief people of the city effected their escape to Láhej.
Thus Aden fell into the hands of the British, being the first capture in the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and from this period the process of its restoration to something like its former importance was not less rapid than had been its decline.
I have been thus particular in giving the official account of the British conquest of Aden, as various erroneous statements have been made relative to its seizure by England. These statements are marked by that ignorance which usually accompanies the malevolent attacks on “perfide Albion.”
The British settlement of Aden is a peninsula of about fifteen miles in circumference, of an irregular oval form, five miles in its greater and three miles in its lesser diameter, connected with the continent by a low, narrow neck of land, 1,350 yards in breadth, but which is in one place nearly covered by the sea at high spring tides.