neither our friendship with the Sultan, nor our action in going to his help in 1957 entitle us to dictate to him the conduct of affairs in his country; that the total abolition of slavery must depend on a long term process of education and persuasion; and that the issue of manumission certificates by H.M. Consul General provides an escape route for any domestic slaves who wish to be free. The Trucial States 4. The Shaikhs of the Trucial Coast first undertook not to engage in the slave trade as early as 1820. By later agreements they engaged themselves to prohibit the carriage of slaves on board vessels belonging to them and consented to British naval vessels taking action to suppress the trade. However domestic slavery remained widespread until fairly recently. In 1953, the Trucial Rulers refused in the Trucial Council even to consider abolishing slavery, arguing that the institution was in accordance with Islamic practice and impossible to abolish without compensation to the masters, which they could not afford. For a period after the war one route for illicit slaving led from Baluchistan through the hinterland of the Trucial Coast to the large market in Saudi Arabia, but since Britain's formation of the Trucial Oman Levies (now Scouts) in 1951 the traffic has almost completely ended, (the formation of the Levies was largely to check slaving, and this can be emphasised as necessary). The Trucial States Rulers have invariably respected the right of the Political Agent in Dubai to free slaves by issuing to them certificates of manumission, and have also accepted the application in their territories of the Supplementary / Convention
