GOVERNMENT OF ARABIA. 135 



obtained his release, and wfis remanded to Mocha, 

 with a stern injunction that neither he nor any of his 

 nation should attain revisit these ports. 



Captain Saris with a small expedition arrived in 

 the course of next year, when he found the Turks 

 more liberal, and met with greater civility ; but the 

 spirit of religious antipathy was too fierce to admit 

 the continuance of trade. Monsieur de la Merveille, 

 with the French deputation from St. Malo, had 

 visited Mocha in 1708, and obtained a treaty of 

 commerce and the establishment of a factory for 

 his countrymen ; previous to which time, the only 

 foreign settlement in tlte town belonged to the 

 Dutch. 



It was not till the year 1618 that Captain Shilling 

 of the Royal Amie obtained a firman from the Imam 

 of Sanaa and the Governor of Mocha, granting to the 

 English, " onihe faith of the Prophet's beard, liberty 

 to sell and buy Avithout let or molestation in that or 

 any other port within their dominions." Twenty 

 years afterward the French bombarded the town, in 

 order to extort payment of a debt of 82,000 crowns 

 (18,620/.) from the dowlah, which they obliged him 

 to reimburse ; besides reducing the duties ffom three 

 to two and a half per cent. During this temporary 

 warfare, the trade of the English and Dutch, who 

 had formed a union of interests, remained in perfect 

 security. Several of the Arabs in Niebuhr's time 

 recollected the siege, and were well pleased at the 

 punishment of the avaricious dowlah, whom they 

 represented as pursued backward and forward wher- 

 ever he went with " pots of fire." This was the last 

 city in Yemen of which the Turks retained posses- 

 sion : the Arabs having recovered it, according to 

 report, not by conquest, but by purchase. Since the 

 Ottomans were dislodged, it has had no other master 

 than the Imam of Sanaa. 



In the present century Mocha has been described 

 by various Europeans. Viewed from a distance* 



