1832.] 
ISLAND OF SrMATRA, 
219 
Another American brig was trading at Quallah-Battoo, a few 
weeks before the disaster of the Friendship, with weights so much 
hghter than are required for a Malay picul, that several of them 
who owned no pepper, and who saw that the captain was entirely- 
ignorant of trade, advised him to make them heavier. A plan 
was also projected to take this vessel in the same manner they 
afterward did the Friendship, by sending a greater number of Ma- 
lays with the pepper to the vessel. This was prevented by one 
of the native clerks, who takes an account of the pepper ; and 
who knew that if they succeeded, his only means of support 
would be cut off, in consequence of vessels avoiding the port ; 
and embracing a moment when no one was observing him, said 
to the captain, " Twenty bags pepper — twenty-five men— take 
care !" A boat usually carries one hundred bags and seven men. 
The clerk had good reasons to be cautious ; as, not long before, 
it is said another had been poisoned for giving a similar intimation 
of an intended act of piracy ; and it is often owing to the clerks 
that so many projected schemes of villany have been frustrated. 
In the present instance, the captain being thus apprized of his 
danger, took immediate measures to defeat the nefarious intentions 
of the conspirators ; who, in this instance, had certainly no provo- 
cation. The same captain afterward went to Soo-soo ; where 
they detained him on shore, under some frivolous pretext, and he 
was finally compelled to pay two hundred dollars for his release or 
ransom. 
These unsuccessful attempts at cutting olf vessels on the 
coast had become so common, that the utmost vigilance was 
necessary on the part of every shipmaster engaged in the trade. 
One of our intelligent informants was marked as the prey of the 
pirates, on his first voyage to Sumatra. Soon after his arrival on 
the coast, before he had opened any dealings with them, a large 
proa was sent from Quallah-Battoo to capture his vessel. Quick 
in their discrimination of strangers, they presumed upon his sup- 
posed ignorance of their character, and had made powerful ar- 
rangements for carrying their nefarious design into execution. 
The captain, however, had not come upon the coast without 
his precautionary lesson ; and, therefore, suspecting mischief, 
instead of permitting the well-manned proa to lie alongside, he 
compelled them, to anchor at a distance. He had but eight men 
