"وضع باسعيدو" [و‎‎١] (٩٢/١)

0)
t -n HOth October.
Confidential.
B« /
^ P.Z. 668V^ •
SL^tns of Ba ajdii.
The Tieraorandum attached sets out in some detail
the relevant facts since 1720 in ^o far as they are on
record bearing on the status of the British concession at
Basidu in the Island of Kishm in the Persian Gulf. The
concession in question is held under a written grant of
1820 from the Imam of Muscat, at that period in effective
possession of Kii-hm. The essential point in issue is
whether the Imam in making the grant in question in 1820
did so as sovereign of Kishm or in his capacity as a
tenant of Persia.
2, Tne -natter was closely investigated in 1821,
by an officer specially deputed to the Persian G-ulf
consequent on Persian protests against the landing of a
British detachment in the Island of Ki~hm under the
authority granted by the Imam. Great difficulty was even
at that period experienced in reaching any positive
conclusion as to the strength or weakness of the Imam's
claims to sovereignty. The aifficulty in establishing
the true facts is hardly less to-day. A survev of the
correspondence as a whole and of the history of the
island of Kishm, in which Basidu is situated, in the
century preceding 1820 tends to suggest that the basis
for the Imam's claims is unsubstantial*
1780-1794.
3. According to Lorimer's Oazetteer of the
Persian Gulf, which is the accepted authority on the
history of the Grulf States, and which is based on
exhaustive local researches some 30 years ago by an officer
of the I.G«S. of great experience, it does not appear
that the Arabs of the Oman Coast were much in evidence
in/