y to give any special sanction to
ulterior measures--"a question on which"--in the words of the
despatch--"her Majesty's Government is rather called upon to
pronounce judgment, than the supreme government of India." The
authorities at Bombay, however, were not to be thus diverted from
the attainment of their favourite object; and in a despatch of
September 7, 1838, to the Secret Committee, (_Corresp_. No. 59,)
they announce that, "on reconsideration, they have resolved to adopt
immediate measures for attempting to obtain peaceable possession of
Aden, without waiting for the previous instructions of the
Governor-general of India:" but "as the steamer Berenice will leave
Bombay on the 8th inst.," (_the next day_,) "we have not time to
enter into a detail of the reasons which have induced us to come to
the above resolution." A notification similar to the above had been
forwarded two days previously to Lord Auckland at Simla; and a
laconic reply was received (Oct. 4) from Sir William Macnaghten,
simply to the effect that "his lordship was glad to find that, at
the present crisis of our affairs, the governor (of Bombay) in
council has resolved to resort to no other than peaceful means
for the attainment of the object in view."

In the latter part of October, accordingly, Captain Haines once more
reached Aden in the Coote, with a small party of Bombay sepoys on
board as his escort; but the aspect of affairs was by no means
favourable. The old Sultan Mahassan, worn out with age and
infirmities, had resigned the management of affairs almost entirely
to his fiery son Hamed, who, encouraged not only by his success in
baffling the former attempt, but by the smallness of the force which
had accompanied the British commissioner, [46] openly set him at
defiance, declaring that he himself, and not his father, was now the
Sultan of the Bedoweens: that his father was but an imbecile old man;
and that any promise which might have been extorted from him could
not be regarded as of any avail: and, in short, that the place
should not be given up upon any terms. In pursuance of this
denunciation, all supplies, even of wood and water, were refused to
the ship; the Banyan in charge of the Derya-Dowlut's cargo was
prohibited from giving up the goods to the English; and though the
interchange of letters was kept up as briskly as before, the
resolution of Sultan Hamed was not to be shaken by this torrent of
diplomacy: and he constantly adhered