MOCHA. 
399 
than induce him to come to the Factory on business while I was 
there ; Mr. Pringle having, in one of his fits, struck him on the 
cheek with the sole of his slipper, the deepest insult that can be 
offered to an Asiatic, among whom it is considered as a mark of 
disrespect to show even the sole of the foot. 
The Assaye was surveyed by the officers and the carpenters of 
the American ships ; who reported, that the whole of her iron- 
works were totally decayed, her timbers deficient in number, and 
together with her bows and upper works, very bad, her bottom 
worm eaten, and rotten, and not a bolt to be discovered in her ; 
they therefore declared it was impossible for her to go again to 
sea. It is really astonishing how Mr. Sutherland, and the com- 
mittee of survey, could have reported her fit for the service of the 
marine, since she could not have been in a much worse state than 
when she entered the Red Sea. I reported the circumstances to 
Lord Wellesley, Mr. Duncan, and Captain Money, the new super- 
intendent of marine; and as Mr. Maxfield was now thrown out of 
his command, and his crew were to be returned to Bombay, I 
suggested to Mr. Pringle the eligibility of their being turned over, 
marines and all, to the Alert, and that the Assaye should be broken 
up. This was agreed to; and, on the 2d of April, Mr. Maxfield 
entered on his new command, and began to prepare for sea. On 
the 8th arrived the Company's cruizer Princess Augusta, Captain 
Bennett, having on board my friend Captain Sparks, as commis- 
sioner to Macullah, for the recovery of the Alert, dispatched by the 
Government of Bombay, who had learned the fate of this ship, by 
the means of a Banian at Muscat. The owners had turned her over 
jto the underwriters, who had appointed Messrs. Forbes their agents 
