ABSTRACT
FOR a generation after Captain Owen's "protectorate." atMombasa had been disclaimed by the British Government, the Imam of Muscat ruled over his African dominions without any interference on the part of a foreign power. Between Owen's departure and the brief visit, already recorded, of the Cleopatra under Commander Wyvill, .there is. no record of a British warship in the waters north of Zanzibar; and only on very few occasions was the island itself visited in the next decade. The southern Arab trade to the Comoro Islands and Madagascar was, as has been seen, interrupted to a certain extent by cruisers from the Cape; but in the area north of the equator, which came under the Bombay Marine and the East Indies Command, no slaver was captured over a period of twenty-four years. The task of patrolling that area called for at least a dozen ships, but the only ship available was an occasional sloop which was sent from Bombay up the Persian Gulf to show the flag. The difficulties raised by the courts of justice at Bombay were so formidable that naval officers were positively discouraged from suppressing the Slave Trade, since any interference with such a time-honoured institution as the Arab trade was regarded by the Indian Government as useless and unwise. ( I )
The Moresby Treaty of 1822 with the Imam of Muscat limited, but at the same time actually condoned, the trade, since it gave Said all that his subjects needed-a free passage up the coast from Zanzibar to the ports of southern Arabia. I t was in any case the custom of the masters of the dhows to hug the coast, so the treaty never inconvenienced them in the slightest; nor, if they did sail outside territorial waters was there any likelihood of being challenged by a British warship.
