Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/54

 Charles William Thompson, who was then a little boy, having been born in India, and can remember the Imâm with his hand in a sling on board ship afterwards.

A misunderstanding having arisen between the Bombay Government and the Arabs of Al Ashkarah on the coast of Omân, who had plundered certain boats, the former sent an order to Captain Thompson to act against them from Kishme in the event of their clearly appearing to be piratical, but to address a letter to them previously to any attack being made. This attempt at negotiation failing through the murder by the hostile tribe of the messenger bearing the letter, the injunction to communicate appeared to be fulfilled and answered. Military men will see the duty of acting with decision under these circumstances. Landing at Soor, on the Arabian coast, forty-six English miles from the town of the hostile tribe of Beni Bou Ali, Captain Thompson's small force of three hundred and twenty Sepoys and four guns was joined by the Imâm of Maskat with two thousand men of his own. The force of the enemy was reported to be nine hundred bearing arms. On the 9th of November, 1820, as the column was toiling through the sand, the hostile sheik, Mohammed Ben Ali,