The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [153]
From about the end of the Seven Years War, in 1763, Britain faced no major challenge to her naval dominance in the ocean. The only remaining threat was 'piracy'. We noted earlier that it is not a simple matter to say who is a pirate, and who is an auxiliary of an established 'state' (see pages 126–7). As Mitchell noted perceptively, 'The same person might well be trader, fisherman, pirate and naval employee by turns.'22 Even at the start of our period the situation concerning Europeans was still blurry. During the French revolutionary wars British naval forces in the Indian Ocean were stretched thin on occasion. The enemies who did best in this situation were not the official French frigates, but rather the more or less sanctioned privateers. The authorities in French Mauritius licensed twenty-five such privateers, and between 1793 and 1802 they took 200 prizes, while official frigates took only forty.23
Early in our period European ships were still at risk from pirates, as Earl found in 1832. One pirate in Indonesia had a prahu with 150 men and several large guns.
The pirates who infest the Archipelago consist wholly of the inhabitants of the free Mahommedan states in Sumatra, Lingin, Borneo, Magindano, and Sulu; those natives who have remained uncontaminated by the detestable doctrines of the Arabs never being known to engage in the like pursuits. The Europeans who are unfortunate enough to fall into their hands are generally murdered, while the natives who compose the crews of the captured vessels are sold for slaves.24
So also off the west coast of India, where the Angrias and Sidis in the late eighteenth century sometimes gave as good as they got when confronted by EIC craft. However, as European ships evolved into iron and steel monsters, a process we will cover in detail presently, their ships became less vulnerable. The Europeans could use steam gunboats, and exchange information using the electric telegraph. Now it was only local ships which were under threat.
The Europeans pursued a carefully graduated policy on this matter. Essentially they defined who were their allies or clients, and protected their ships, and indeed sometimes turned a blind eye to nefarious activities from such client states. It was the enemies of the clients who were subject to attack. This was well articulated by the leader of a 'pirates'' stronghold in Kathiawad, western India, in 1807. He lugubriously told the British, 'In these days, all merchants have taken to the flag and protection of the Honourable Company, and if I abstain from plundering them, where can I procure food, and if I continue I fall under the displeasure of the Company.'25 Similar discriminatory policies were pursued by the Dutch and English in the Malay world, and by the Spanish in the Philippines, but I have chosen to use as a case study the British attack on what they defined as piracy in the Gulf in the early nineteenth century.
The people concerned were the Qawasim, a confederation of tribes who lived in al-Sir province, now part of the United Arab Emirates. Their main port was Ra's al-Khayma, north of Muscat, but they also controlled Sharja and, on the other side of the gulf, Linga. This grouping was in competition with Oman, further down the gulf. Early in the nineteenth century they