"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٢‎٢‎٠] (١٧٨٢/١٣٧٥)

ttitjitirnnffriniiinrn'mmimufflm
Fourth
Anglo-
Turkish ex
pedition
inst the
a'nb, ^OS
es
Assistance
lent by the
1220
by the traveller Niebnhr, may have been a better merchant than he was a
politician ; and the Ka'ab Shaikh contended that, in making peace with
the Turks, he had not abandoned his right o£ retaliation on the British,
whose unfriendly action he had every reason to resent. An alarmia^
attack by the Ka'ab upon British shipping, which is described at length
in the history of ; Arabistan, followed in July 1765 ; and on the 24th of
August eight Ka'ab Gall ivats appeared at Basrah, whereupon the Muntafik
tribe under Shaikh 'Abdullah, on pretence of repelling the invaders,
migrated into the date plantations on the right bank of the river below
Basrah and there joined the enemy in making away w T ith the fruit.
The Mutasallim, whose chief fear was that an open combination might
suddenly replace the secret understanding between the Ka'ab and the
Muntafik, remained inactive at Manawi, where he had concentrated all
his troops for the defence of the town ; and the disagreeable situation
continued until the 10th of October, when the Ka'ab took their de
parture. By this time little of the date crop remained to be collected
by the proprietors.
The unheard-of aggressions committed by the Ka'ab in 1765 upon
vessels under the British flag obliged the East India Company to
despatch a considerable mixed force in the following year for the punish
ment of the tribe. A campaign followed, of which the course is fully
detailed in the history of 'Arabistan, and of which it is enough to say
here that the Turks took part, as the nominal principals, on the same side
as the British; that the heaviest action fought resulted in a deplorable
defeat of the British ; and that the operations were finally brought to an
end by the intervention of Karim Khan, Vakil of Persia. In March and
April 1/67, as described in the historical chapter relating to the Persian
Coast, a genuine effort was made by an emissary from Karim Khan to the
Ka ab to obtain satisfaction for the British and the Turks, but it failed ;
and a naval blockade of the Ka'ab country, which the British had
established on their retirement, was rigorously maintained until 1768.
In that year, in consequence of their failure to take the island of Kharag
under an arrangement which they had formed with Karim Khan, and
of the premature abandonment of further negotiations at Shiraz, the
British forfeited the support of the Vakil in the Ka'ab case. The naval
blockade of the Ka'ab was then, apparently, abandoned ; and the Ka'ab,
finding themselves once more at large, began to build forts upon both
sides of the Shatt-al-'Arab.
At the end pf 1769, as noticed in an earlier section, the Ka'ab,
who had now begun to tire of their Persian connection, actually proceeded