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During the century following Tavernier’s time, the fisheries were vigorously prosecuted, owing to the impoverished condition of the reefs in India and America, and to the large demand for pearls, not only by the Oriental courts, but by the wealth and fashion of Europe. Except for the last four years, when the Ceylon fishery was very productive, throughout the eighteenth century the Persian Gulf was almost the only important source of supply for pearls. For several years following the reopening of the Ceylon fishery in 1796, that region diverted some of the attention which the Persian waters had been receiving, but it was not long before these regained their ascendancy.

In 1838, Lieutenant J. R. Wellsted, an officer in the British India service, reported that the fisheries of the gulf employed 4300 boats, manned by somewhat more than 30,000 men.^[98] Of these boats, 3500 were from the Island of Bahrein, 100 from the Persian coast, and the remaining 700 from the Pirate Coast situated between Bahrein and the entrance to the Gulf of Oman. Lieutenant Wellsted estimated the value of the pearls secured annually as approximately £400,000, which is somewhat less than the average value of the output in recent years.