1832.] 
RECONNOITRING PARTY. 
105 
their principal rajahs, and retaining them as hostages until the 
actual perpetrators of this atrocious act of piracy were brought to 
condign punishment, and ample restitution of property made to 
the owners of the ship Friendship, and her unfortunate officers 
and crew. When similar acts of aggression are perpetrated by 
the primitive proprietors of the American soil — when a robbery 
or murder has been committed by one or more individuals of a 
tribe on our western frontiers — the nearest local authority imme- 
diately makes a demand that the culprits be forthwith given up to 
abide the penalties of our own laws ; and, if refused, the demand 
is quickly enforced by the arm of military power; and chiefs, 
like Black Hawk, have been retained in custody as hostages for 
the future good behaviour of their tribes. Ought the bloodthirsty 
inhabitants of Sumatra to be treated with any more lenity than 
the much wronged and oppressed aborigines of our own country ? 
Let justice and humanity answer the question. 
In order, then, to secure the persons of the rajahs without 
bloodshed, it was desirable, as before intimated, to gain more ac- 
curate information than the commodore possessed, respecting the 
exact position of the several fortresses in which these oriental 
princes were to be found. To effect this object, the commodore 
directed that the following system of espionage be adopted : — a 
boat was prepared to visit the shore, and Lieutenant Shubrick, 
in citizen's dress, was to represent the captain of the Potomac as 
a merchantman; while Lieutenant Edson was to represent the 
supercargo, anxious to procure a supply of - pepper. Lieutenants 
Pinkham, Hoff, Ingersoll, and Acting-sailing-master Totten, 
dressed as sailors, rowed the boat; and it was intended that they 
should stroll about the village ground, and pick up what informa- 
tion they could in relation to the state of defence of the Malay 
forts, while the mock captain and supercargo should open nego- 
tiations in relation to a cargo of pepper. These officers having 
received the necessary instructions from Mr. Barry, as to the plan 
of opening negotiations with the rajahs, the boat put off from 
the ship. 
The Potomac had anchored in twenty fathoms, soft bottom, the 
town bearing north five miles distant. The boat had not pro- 
ceeded beyond hail of the frigate, when the bottom was per- 
ceived under her ; which induced Lieutenant Shubrick to hail the 
