Hassan bin Rahma Al Qasimi

During a visit to Abdulla in Riyadh in August 1814, Hassan bin Rahma received a letter from the British Resident at Bushire accusing him of responsibility for the theft of two boats from Bombay laden with grain.

However, soon after the signature of the agreement, a British boat was seized as it visited Ras Al Khaimah with letters for Hassan bin Rahma from Bruce and the envoy had suffered 'the most degrading treatment.

'[4] A series of incidents of 'piracy and plunder' then followed over the following four years, with the Al Qasimi laid firmly to blame by historian J. G. Lorimer, who asserted that the Qawasim "now indulged in a carnival of maritime lawlessness, to which even their own previous record presented no parallel".

[6] Whether the accusations were baseless, forming part of an attempt to curb Arab trade with India on the part of the East India Company (the argument put forward by Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi in his Myth of Piracy in the Arabian Gulf) or a catalogue of piratical acts, the end result was the same.

[7] In November 1819, the British embarked on an expedition against Ras Al Khaimah, led by Major-General William Keir Grant, with a platoon of 3,000 soldiers.

On the fall of Ras Al Khaimah, three cruisers were sent to blockade Rams to the North and this, too was found to be deserted and its inhabitants retired to the 'impregnable' hill-top fort of Dhayah.

The treaty having been signed by William Keir Grant and all of the Trucial Rulers, the Government in Bombay made clear that it was most dissatisfied with his leniency over the coastal tribes and desired, 'if it were not too late, to introduce some conditions of greater stringency'.