Still every thing appeared in a fair way for adjustment; the principal difficulty remaining to be settled being the annual sum to be paid as an equivalent for the port-dues of Aden.  The Sultan’s commissioner at first rated this source of revenue at the exorbitant sum of 50,000 dollars!—­but it was at last agreed that it should be commuted for a yearly stipend of 8708, a mode of payment preferred by the Sultan to the receipt of a gross sum, lest the rapacity of his neighbours should be excited against him by so sudden an accession of wealth:  while the amount thus fixed was believed even to exceed the actual amount of the customs.  The Sultan meanwhile, though evading the formal execution of the deed of transfer, constantly wrote from Lahedj that the English were at liberty to begin building in Aden as soon as they pleased—­adding on more than one occasion—­“if the Turks or any other people should come and take away the whole country by strength from me, the blame will not rest on my shoulders.”

On the 27th, however, Sultan Hamed, the eldest son and heir-apparent of Sultan Mahassan, arrived at Aden from Lahedj, accompanied by a synd or descendant of the prophet, named Hussein, who was represented as having come as a witness to the transaction; and Captain Haines was invited on shore to meet them.  While he was preparing, however, to repair to the place of meeting, he received a private intimation through the merchant already mentioned, Reshid-Ebn-Abdallih, to the effect that the Arab chiefs had determined on seizing his person at the interview, in order to possess themselves of the papers connected with the proposed transfer of Aden, (to which Sultan Hamed had from the first been strongly opposed,) and in particular of the bond for 4191 dollars which had been given in satisfaction for the balance of the goods in the Derya-Dowlut.  How far this imputed treachery was really meditated, there can be, of course, no means of precisely ascertaining; and the minute of the governor of Bombay (Correspondence, No. 49,) seems to consider it doubtful; [45] but Captain Haines acted as if fully convinced of the correctness of the intelligence which he had received; and after reproaching Sultan Hamed with his intended perfidy, returned first to Mokha, and afterwards (in February) to Bombay, carrying with him the letter in which the old Sultan was alleged to have given his consent to the cession, but leaving the recovered goods at Aden in charge of a Banyan—­a tolerably strong proof, by the way, that the Sultan, notwithstanding the bad faith laid to his charge, was not considered likely to appropriate them afresh.

[Footnote 45:  “I am not, however, disposed to treat the matter as one of much importance.  We have no knowledge of it but from report, and all concerned in it will solemnly deny the truth of the information.”]