"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٦‎٥‎٩] (١٧٨٢/٨٠٢)

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British easier by striking terror into the Qawasim. Pending a settle
ment the Government of Bombay maintained the systenij which had
already been for some time in force, of protecting trade by giving convoy
up and down the Gulf to trading vessels,—a duty in which they were
materially assisted by His Majesty's ships. Some of the East India
Company's vessels were placed for this purpose at the disposal of the
officers of the Royal Navy commanding in the Gulf, while others were
stationed off the Persian Coast to prevent piratical attacks upon that side.
In the following year, 1819, discussion of the measures to be taken
in the Gulf was resumed, and various schemes were proposed for ensuring
the maintenance of peace after the conclusion of the expedition. The
Government of Bombay, who did not regard the possible introduction of
the Egyptians into Gulf affairs with much satisfaction, inclined
apparently to a scheme under which the Saiyid of "Oman should be placed
in charge for the future of the Pirate Coast and Bahrain Islands, and
should in return authorise the formation of a British settlement upon the
island of Qishm, and even defray the cost of maintaining it. The
Government of Bombay considered that the Saiyid had a hereditary claim
to suzerainty over the Pirate Coast, and that the Shaikh of Bahrain had
forfeited all claim to consideration by harbouring and protecting pirates ,
and they understood that the Shah of Persia had expressed his readiness
to agree to the occupation of Bahrain by the Saiyid on conditiou of an
annual payment of 30,000 Tumans to himself out of a total estimated
revenue of 200,000 * Tumans; but they entertained some doubt of the
expediency of destroying the independence of the Shaikhs of Bahrain, and
they evidently anticipated serious opposition on the pait of the Persian
Government to the location of a British post on Qishm. The course
which was in the end adopted, after argument,t will appear from the
* The estimate must have been excessive for the Tuman was then
pound sterling, while the present revenue of Bahrain is only a ou , P
annum.
t An independent line was adopted by Mr. F. Warden, who had made a special
study of Persian Gulf subjects, who in his capacity of Chief Secietaiy ha no
consulted by the Governor of Bombay in regard to the expedition, and w o .
as a provincial member of the Bombay Board, delivered himself on th g -
1819 of a monumental minute on policy. Mr. Warden's main contention was that the
Wahbabis, not the Qawasim, were principally to blame for the piiacies com J
the latter; and he observed: "The result of my researches has established tb.s
" important fact, that piracy is not indigenous to the soil or the shore, o e
" Gulpb, but of recent growth ; on the contrary every tribe is rather dispose o e b
in commercial pursuits." He argued that the molestation of British vesse s was^ o