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Captain Abud
Almost without exception Assistants in the early years
of the Coal Company had a series of contretemps with its
hierarchy. A good example was Captain Abud who, in spite
of seemingly blotting his copybook would have a long and
distinguished career in Aden and elsewhere within the
Bombay Presidency. Abud was on Perim for about 19 months
from September 1887 (having been promoted sometime after
his arrival) and the first of two incidents occurred in
December 1888. In May the following year Hinton Spalding
had written a strong letter of complaint to the India
Office in which he accused Abud as being a ‘blight’ on
that station. What had Abud done to upset Mr Turner in
particular. (Mr Turner being the manager on Perim)?
In December the previous year Robert Anderson & Co, one
of the shipping lines whose vessels sometimes called at
Perim had written to their local MP with a complaint.
According to their version of events one of their ships,
the Locksley Hall, whilst passing through the small
strait (and not due to call at Perim) had been recalled
by a signal hoisted on the government mast by the fort.
According to Anderson & Co the signal hoisted was
‘important letters and despatches’. Her captain had then
taken his ship round the island and had entered the
harbour, to find that the reason for recall was to tell
two of his passengers, Lady Wilke and Lady Gough, that
there was mail waiting for them at Aden! The shipping
company was also upset because if there had been an
accident the insurance cover on ship and cargo would
have been invalidated by this deviation. The Locksley
Hall was bound for Karachi and due to this diversion
missed the evening high tide on arriving outside that
port. The Perim Coal Company pointed out that they were
the Agents on Perim for Robert Anderson & Co and should
have been consulted as to the best way of contacting the
vessel. The MP wanted the officer responsible to be
punished.
In fact it turned out that it was the Resident, who was
not expecting the Locksley Hall to call at Aden, who had
sent Abud a telegram about the letters for the Ladies.
The Resident’s official explanation was that Abud had
had hoisted the signal ‘QH’, the meaning of which was
‘stop, heave to, I have something important to
communicate’. The duty of the captain was then to hoist
his answering pennant, at which point Abud would have
informed him that there was mail at Aden. If this had
occurred the ship would have been delayed only a few
minutes. Instead of which the captain sailed his ship
round to enter the harbour. Not unnaturally the resident
pointed out that ‘no blame whatsoever is attached to
Captain Abud’
But with a Member of Parliament involved someone had to
take the blame. The Resolution of the Bombay Government
was: “The circumstances should be reported to Her
Majesty’s Secretary of State, and regret expressed for
the error of judgement shown. Captain Abud should be
admonished, and warned not to interfere with the course
of a vessel under similar circumstances. Doubtless he
did not anticipate the result of his signal, but at the
most he should have consulted the Agent of the vessel at
Perim as to the best way, if any, of conveying to the
passengers on board the private communication which the
Resident wished to be delivered The Resident should be
informed that the Governor in Council cannot accept his
view of the case.”
When he received this news Abud had already been on
Perim for 17 months and within a couple of months he was
due for leave. No doubt he felt that Turner had
engineered his downfall. He decided to get his own back.
Until that time Abud had not insisted on following to
the letter the rather bureaucratic regulations
concerning the arrival of shipping.
“In exercise of the power conferred by Section
53 of the Sea Customs Act, 1878, the Governor
in Council is pleased to direct that no vessel arriving
at the port of Perim shall pass the entrance of the
harbour until a manifest has been delivered to the
Government official appointed to board such vessel.”
This arrival form dealt with such things as what arms
were carried aboard, what quantities of wines, spirits,
opium and salt; another form also covered any accidents
at sea, including going aground, fires on board and
breakdowns. In practice the forms had to be completed
and handed in within two hours of arrival to the Police
Clerk on Company Side; if this was not done the
Assistant Resident had the right to board the vessel,
and presumably issue a summons. Up till then the
procedure had been for completed forms to be sent up to
Abud at the fort first thing each morning. In addition
the practice had crept in of the Coal Company, as
Agents, submitting the forms on behalf of captains. Abud
now insisted on the two-hour rule. He had occasion to
write to the captain of one ship, the Darwin, whose
forms had not been handed in on time; Abud warned the
captain that he could be fined or even imprisoned.
Although her captain made no complaint at the time, her
owners did subsequently, no doubt goaded on by Turner
via Hinton Spalding. The Darwin’s owners’ complaint to
Hinton Spalding was as follows:
“Our steamer Darwin when a short way out from Bombay
homeward bound with instructions to call at Perim, your
depot for coals, had a slight derangement of machinery
which the captain naturally proceeded to get repaired on
arrival at Perim. We now come to the interference of a
person who seems to be styled Assistant Political
Resident at Perim and shall be glad to know whether it
is the practice of this individual to put all masters to
the trouble, expense, and annoyance of filling up a lot
of useless forms about matters which don’t concern him.”
It was perhaps typical of the insensitivity of Spalding
that he chose to send a copy of this letter to the India
Office. In Bombay, amongst the professional
administrators the letter was summed up in one word:
impertinent. By the time the complaints reached the
India Office Abud was on leave in England and it took
some time to get his side of the story. The Residency in
Aden were not willing to accept any of the three charges
that had been brought against Abud but as had happened
in the previous incident higher authority was not
supportive and at the end of May the India Office
approved of the Government of Bombay’s decision not to
send Abud to Perim again. In any case it would have been
most unlikely that Abud would have gone back to Perim on
returning from leave - in fact no Indian Civilian Staff
Assistant ever did so. So what appeared to Spalding in
Liverpool and to the politicians in the India Office to
be a censure of Abud was in fact a normal career move.
Lt Col Stace, the Acting Resident in Aden, on 23 June
summed up the local view to Captain Lydd who had
replaced Abud at Perim: “The Company in its
headstrongness is blind to the fact that Government
must uphold government rights and that once they
fail to do this their collapse is at hand. The Company
too has not yet learnt that the Government of India is a
very different thing from the Government at home and
cannot be bullied in the same way. p.s. Abud has gone to
Zaila.” [The Somali Coast was at that time
administered by Bombay through Aden.] |
