Under the benevolent rule of the Sabahs, the town enjoyed relative security and thrived. New trades developed to serve travelers, merchants, bedouins, and the community itself. These included basket and mat weaving, cotton textiles, and embroidery. European visitors of the day estimated the population at 10,000, and reported a thin line of houses, coffee shops, and souks stretching from the current site of the Kuwait Towers to where the Sheraton Hotel is located. The houses were constructed of mud and dung, and some of them, belonging to rich merchants, were lavish. At the broadest point, the community stretched as far inland as today’s First Ring Road, where the first city wall was constructed in 1798.

The harbor was busy with nearly 800 commercial dhows and their ocean-going cousins, booms. To the south were oyster beds making the pearl merchants rich. And there was extensive contact and cooperation with the bedouins in the summer time. These dual influences - bedouin nomads in the interior and merchants at the harbor  -  were to determine the national character of Kuwait.

Though internally Kuwait was enjoying peace and prosperity, there were forces outside that caused great concern to the rulers. Pirates ranged freely along the Arabian coast. The Persians had taken Basra to the north. The Ottomans threatened from the northeast, and various Arab tribes from the west and south.

The British dominated trade in the area by that time, and the Kuwaitis saw that they were thus their natural allies. As early as the 1770s, Amir Abdullah I contracted with Britain to deliver mail between the Gulf and Aleppo in Syria. By the end of the century, Kuwait handled virtually all trade in the Gulf, including trans-shipments to India, and was the keystone of the overland route to the Mediterranean.

Prosperous commerce continued throughout the 1800s. In 1841, the British attaché reported that Kuwait was a free port, carrying on extensive import and trans-shipment business in textiles, rice, coffee, sugar, wheat, tobacco, fruits, spices, teak, and mangrove. Ships plied routes throughout the Gulf, as well as east to India and west to Africa. There were also many caravan links to the interior of Arabia.

The diverse trade had many notable effects on Kuwaiti society. First, it brought locals into contact with people from all over, giving the Kuwaitis a more cosmopolitan outlook than many of their neighbors. Second, it took men away from their families for months at a time, leading to a home life that was strictly dominated by resourceful, self-reliant women. It also gave rise to sea shanties and other seafaring folklore, as well as a tradition of lavish feasts upon the return of the ships. Most important, perhaps, it gave Kuwaitis early and extensive experience in contracting, finance, and investment — experience that had a great influence on the development of modern Kuwait.

Continued growth of pearl diving also helped make Kuwait what it is. The lives of the divers were hard, but for the speculators it became very profitable indeed. By the end of the 1800s there were nearly 500 ships devoted solely to pearling.