16 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



thorough knowledge of Eastern produce, and familiar with the 

 dialects of Malaya, could buy with great cheapness when the 

 crops were abundant, and could, after storing his cargo, sell it 

 to homeward-bound merchantmen with great advantage to 

 himself. Such a storing-place he intended his new home 

 to be, and he designed to run the Borneo between the 

 Malayan islands and Cocos, and make the atoll into a depot 

 for Eastern produce. It was for this purpose that he wished 

 the islands to be taken under the protection of the Imperial 

 Government : — but many disappointments awaited him. He 

 had left his claims in the hands of John Hare, who was to 

 represent his cause in London, but Hare played him false, 

 and no help came from that direction. Ross next made 

 direct petition to His Majesty King William IV. This 

 method also failed, and so did his attempts to persuade 

 the Government of Mauritius to take the islands under its 

 charge. It was felt that Cocos-Keeling was too small and too 

 remote for its protection at the hands of the Government to 

 be warranted by its importance, and all the reward that Ross 

 obtained for his repeated petitions was the visit of a British 

 man-o'-war. In February of 1830 Captain Sandilands arrived 

 at the islands in H.M.S. Gomd and held an inquiry and 

 furnished a report, but no further steps were taken. It is 

 said that in the meanwhile Hare was in negotiation with the 

 Dutch authorities, for his purpose was to persuade them to 

 take over the protection of the atoll. This would seem to be 

 a strange line of action for Hare to take, for his feeling for 

 the Dutch in Malaya cannot have been friendly ; and yet a 

 Dutch gunboat — the Blora under the command of Mynheer 

 Van de Jagt — arrived in October 1829, and reported on the 

 condition of the islands, as a result — so it is said — of his 

 negotiations. Neither Ross nor Hare produced any other 

 result from their petitions than a visit of inquiry, and it is 

 not surprising that this was the case, for the entire population 

 of the atoll at the time only numbered 175 all told. Of 

 these 175 colonists, 20 were white, and 10 of these Avere born 

 in the islands : the remaining 15 5 were natives of Sumatra, 



