ADDRESS. 37 



The Naval Board had not within its control a chart of the coast 

 against which it was sending a heavy armament. The com- 

 mander of the noble frigate had to rely mainly on the information 

 he might gather on his way out ; and when on the spot, accord- 

 ing to the best charts he could procure at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 he found the position of the frigate high upon the interior moun- 

 tains of Sumatra, before he was within anchoring distance of its 

 shore ! Of the inhabitants, form of government, or its respon- 

 sibility, nothing was known upon which definite instructions could 

 be grounded ; so that, as regarded the mode of seeking repa- 

 ration, the commodore had no other aid than his own sagacity, 

 and the few dim lights which the Department had the power to 

 bestow. And where is this country of which we knew so little ? 

 Is it in some obscure, rarely visited corner of the globe ? No. 

 We are speaking, be it recollected, of the island of Sumatra, one 

 of 'the largest of the Sunda Isles ; of its coast at Quallah Battoo, 

 where our vessels have carried on a considerable trade in pepper 

 for the last thirty years, and where the nations of Europe prose- 

 cuted a lucrative traffic centuries before the commencement of 

 that period. At the beginning of the present era, we had no less 

 than thirty vessels in that quarter during a single season. The 

 English and Dutch have yielded their cherished monopolies into 

 the hands of our keen and far sighted merchants ; in a word, the 

 direct and indirect traffic with the Sunda Isles forms no inconside- 

 rable item in the sum of our commercial prosperity ; and yet how 

 little information did we not long ago possess, of the particulars 

 most essential to a safe intercourse with these semi barbarous 

 inhabitants ! 



Nor is this the only region of importance, commercially, with 

 regard to which our ignorance is shamefully apparent. The 

 report before us offers evidence of a thousand similar instances at 

 a single view. The Fegee Islands are a case in point. Where are 

 they ? What knowledge have we of their character and extent? 



