392 MOCHA. 
he has ever been an attached and useful ally. During the expedi- 
tion to the Red Sea, his port was open to them ; and, on General 
Murray's quitting Perim, the British troops were, with an unbounded 
confidence, admitted within his walls. On the appearance of the 
Johassen fleet in his harbour, in 1804, while a large Surat vessel was 
lying there, he sent his soldiers on board to protect her from the 
pirates, and obliged them to put to sea, without receiving any sup- 
plies, though they oflPered him the half of the plunder they had 
already made, if he would permit them to remain. These repeated 
acts of friendship now call for a return, which it is perfectly in the 
British power to afford. 
The Wahabee, conscious of their want of arms and ammunition, 
and fully convinced of the benefit they would receive from a trade 
being opened between India and their ports, have made repeated 
offers to the Bombay Government, of granting immunities and ex- 
clusive privileges to the British merchants, if they would establish 
a factory at Loheia ; they would therefore willingly comply with 
any request in favour of the Sultaun of Aden, as an ally of the Bri- 
tish, and would, with little regret, give up an attack on a power, 
whom they have hitherto found capable of resisting them. 
No answer has as yet been given to the applications of the Wa- 
habee J and the Bombay Government behold, without concern, a 
revolution, which is again connecting the disunited Arabs under one 
supreme master. It is a circumstance well worthy of remark, that 
this has, for the first time since the death of Ali, occurred at a mo- 
ment, when the surrounding kingdoms of Asia and Africa are sunk 
into the same state of imbecility and distraction, to which they 
were reduced under the Romans, when the dissolute and lukewarm 
