"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٦‎٩] (١٧٨٢/٢١٢)

69
place had suffered greatly from the proceedings of the Masqat Arabs.
Kmig then boasted of a church, and there were one or two priests there
who subsisted on alms and perquisites.
The fear that a rupture between the English and the Persians might
turn to the advantage of the Portuguese, as well as of the Dutch, was one
of the considerations which restrained the East India Company from
using naval force upon the Persian coast, as had been done both by the
Portuguese themselves and by the Dutch. In 1676 great resentment was
caused among the English by the refusal of the Portuguese to grant
passes to native vessels under their control for proceeding to Bandar
^Abbas ; and in the following year it was decided, in case the Portuguese
should persist in their unfriendly conduct, to deny English passes for
Kung to native Indian vessels requiring them; the issue of this dispute
not recorded. In 1689, as already mentioned, the Portuguese Factory
is
Relations
of the
Portuguese
with the
English,
1653-1723.
at Kung was plundered by an English pirate vessel, which made a brief
appearance in the Gulf and could not be captured by the Company's
marine; and from 1695 onwards the visits of the Company's vessels to
Kung were discontinued, apparently because they were found unprofitable.
As we shall see in the following paragraph, the Portuguese were at
times inclined to suspect that the depredations of Arab pirates upon their
shipping were deliberately encouraged by the English.
Between the Portuguese and the Arabs of 'Oman relations, ever
since the fall of Hormuz, had been continuously hostile, and a virtual
state of war was the rule. About 1660 Mombasah was. temporarily
wrested from the Portuguese by the Masqat Arabs; but the conflict did
not become serious until the last decade of the 17th century.
In 1693 some Portuguese frigates were severely handled by Masqat
vessels ; and in 1694 or 1695 the Arabs made a maritime descent on
Kung, where they inflicted damage estimated at 60,000 Tumans. About
1696 the Portuguese, at once less prudent and less powerful than their
neighbours the English and the Dutch, consented to help the Persians
against the Masqat pirates ; and the immediate result was a division of
the 'Omani fleet into two squadrons, one of which swept along the
African seaboard and burned the Portuguese settlement at Mornbasah,
while the other destroyed the Portuguese Factory at Mangalore on the
Indian coast* The Portuguese, in 1697, attributed the aggressiveness of
Relations of
the Portu
guese with
the Arabs of
'Oman,
1653-1722.
1693—99.
•Hamilton, however {vide his New Account, Vol. I., page 75) makes the year of
this descent 1695 and the cause a quarrel between the Arabs and "the Carnatick
Rajah."