to his first expressed
position--"I wish much to be friends, and that amity was between us,
but you must not speak or write about the land of Aden again." The
English agent, however, persisted in speaking of the transfer as
already legally concluded, and out of the power of Hamed to
repudiate or annul: while, in order to give greater stringency to
his remonstrances, he gave orders for the detention of the
date-boats and other vessels which arrived off Aden, hoping to
starve the Sultan into submission, by thus at once stopping his
provisions, and cutting off his receipt of port dues. The blockade
does not seem to have been very effectual: and an overture from the
Futhali chief to aid with his tribe in an attack on the Abdallis, was
of course declined by Captain Haines.

[Footnote 46: "Their first exclamation was, 'Are the English so poor
that they can only afford to send one vessel? and is she only come to
talk? Why did they not send her before? Had they sent their men and
vessels, we would have given up; but until they do, they shall never
have the place.'"--CAPTAIN HAINES'S _Despatch_, Nov. 6, (No. 61.)]

The apparently interminable cross fire of protocols [47] (in which both
Captain Haines and his employers appear to have luxuriated to a degree
which would have gladdened the heart of Lord Palmerston himself) was now,
however, on the point of being brought to a close. On the 20th of
November, one of the Coote's boats, while engaged in overhauling an
Arab vessel near the shore, was fired at by the Bedoweens on the beach,
and hostilities were carried on during several days, but with little
damage on either side. In most cases, it would have been considered
that blockading a port, and intercepting its supplies of provisions
constituted a sufficiently legitimate ground of warfare to justify
these reprisals: but Captain Haines, it appears, thought otherwise,
as he stigmatizes it as "a shameful and cowardly attack," and
becomes urgent with the Bombay government for a reinforcement which
might enable him to assume offensive operations with effect. Her
Majesty's ships Volage, 28, and Cruiser, 16 gun-brig, which had been
employed in some operations about the mouth of the Indus, were
accordingly ordered on this service, and sailed from Bombay December
29, accompanied by two transports conveying about 800 troops--Europeans,
sepoys, and artillerymen--under the command-in-chief of Major Baillie,
24th Bombay native infantry. The