"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٦‎٩‎٤] (١٧٨٢/٨٣٧)

694
PERIOD FROM THE FIRST MARITIME TRUCE TO THE
PERPETUAL TREATY OF PEACE, 1835-5^.
The Maritime Truce and Restrictive Line, 1835-36.
Failure of The insufficiency of the General Treaty of Peace for the purpose of
of 182(Mo maintaining security at sea was now fully apparent; for it did not
absofut 811 P rohibit regular maritime warfare, and experience had shown that in the
oecurity. Persian Gulf such warfare must usually be expected to degenerate into
indiscriminate piracy.
Ihe need of further restrictions seems to have been felt even by the
chiefs themselves. The Shaikh of Sharjah, in 1827, and the Shaikh of
Bahrain, in 1828, argued earnestly that under Article No. 4 of the Treaty
the British Government were bound to prevent hostilities at sea,
whatever thiir nature, among the pacificated Arabs ; but the reception
by the British authorities of this suggestion was necessarily, from the
Wording of the Treaty, unfavourable. The attempt to enforce the
provision relating to ships' papers, it may here be remarked, had long
been abandoned as impracticable; and in other respects, as we have seen,
the Treaty had been found ambiguous, if not unworkable.
Ihe British Government were as yet unwilling to assume responsi
bility for the prevention of all warfare at sea, especially as they foresaw
that interference might disturb the balance of power between maritime
principalities and others of which the power was chiefly military ; and
m 1834- the Court of Directors expressly ruled that it was inexpedient,
even at the invitation of the petty Arab States, to assume any sort o/
protectorship or arbitral authority over them. Nevertheless the British
authorities, while they continued to regard themselves as in strictness
merely the head of a naval confederacy for the suppression of piracy,
exeited all their influence on the side of peace, and for a time even made
it a rule to treat as piracy all aggressions committed on the pearl banks
during the annual fishery ; they insisted also that the requirements of
the Treaty of Peace should be observed even by such Arab principalities
as were not parties to it, such as those of Qatif and Kuwait.
Maritime These being the ciicumstances and the views of the principal parties.
Truce. 1835. Ca P tain S - Hennell, the Acting Resident in the Persian Gulf, seized the
opportunity of the set tlement with the Bani \ as to assemble some of the
principal Shaikhs oi their agents at Basidu, where, after an unavailing
attempt had been made to adjust their claims and counter-claims, it was