The Hyacinth incident was a 1910 British military action against suspected gun runners based in Dubai, then one of the Trucial States and now one of the United Arab Emirates, which resulted in street fighting between the town's citizens and British soldiers and culminated in the shelling of Dubai by HMS Hyacinth using high explosive munitions.

The attack and subsequent bombardment resulted in the killing of 37 of Dubai's townspeople, as well as four dead and five wounded British servicemen.

Butti bin Suhail was slow to respond and Noakes was kept waiting for an hour before the party left the Ruler's house and headed for the town, meeting further delays once they arrived.

[4] Arriving at Dubai on 23 December 1910, the captain of HMS Hyacinth, James Dick, briefed by Noakes, decided on a dawn raid.

Stopping to retrieve the body of a dead able seaman, Dick and his party took refuge in Sheikh Butti bin Suhail's house before making their way back to Hyacinth under his protection, a large, armed and angry mob lining the streets.

Commenting on the incident, Rear-Admiral Slade, Secretary of the Admiralty, pointed out, "I must state my opinion that the conduct of both officers and men of the Hyacinth was extremely creditable but that the operations were somewhat hastily undertaken without paying sufficient consideration to the prejudices and ideas of an oriental people.

[6] As a result of the incident, to the grave concern of Butti bin Suhail, who was trying to build his mercantile port by attracting traders to set up their businesses in Dubai, some 150 merchants left the town, mostly Persians involved in the armaments trade.

The Viceroy, Curzon, noted: "object originally in view was hardly worth the risk", labelled the reprisals "Onerous" and urged Cox to restore "friendly relations with the least possible delay".

The Times of India weighed in with a piece filed on 31 December 1910, which pointed out that the mood on the coast generally was that the British interdiction of shipping that had been taking place was viewed by the locals as an attempt to disarm the Arabs – a sentiment stoked by Egyptian newspapers and helped by the fact that the British were allowing the trade at Muscat to continue even as they captured and burned dhows in the Gulf.

His cable to Cox ends with an instruction to British forces in the area: "it should be clearly explained to the tribesmen at Dubai, as elsewhere, that they have no intention of weakening their independence, or of preventing their own possession of arms.