240 STATEMENT OF THE SULTAN. [1845. 



sundry presents, including the desk before alluded to, 

 that everything had been demanded back before the de- 

 parture of the Dutch vessel, therefore he has not in any 

 way been recompensed even for the maintenance of these 

 people, nor has he required it. 



His statement charges the master of the vessel with 

 conduct, which is, to say the least of it, very nearly allied 

 to giving up the Lascars as slaves, by denying all know- 

 ledge of them as his people, and using the terms " Do 

 what you please with them, sell them "; of drunkeness, 

 falsehood, and gross language between him and his crew. 

 Much allowance, too, may be made, for the feeling of Malay 

 versus English, but I regret to say, that upon a close 

 examination of the evidence taken at Manila, compared 

 with the story told here, as well as the character given 

 by the twelve Lascars, recovered from Bulungan, of their 

 treatment at the time of their being wrecked, that there 

 is strong presumptive, if not conclusive, evidence, that 

 the charge of the Sultan is correct, and the whole story 

 narrated to me by Tuan Hadji, in my cabin, during the 

 passage from Pantai to Bulungan corroborated every 

 part of the assertion of the Sultan. The Lascars in 

 their account assert " that the Captain ran away with 

 the boats during the night, leaving them to famish on an 

 uninhabited island." The four unfortunate Lascars who 

 trusted their lives on the raft, have not since been heard 

 of. The rapid tides which set to the S.E., added to the 

 powerful streams entering the sea about this region, must 

 have driven them to sea, and if saved by any of the 

 nianon pirates, which scour this coast, they will probably 

 be sold at Kotai, the nearest and surest mart to prevent 



