1832.] ISLAND OF SUMATRA. . * ,221, 
should be paid ! A compromise was finally effected, and the 
vessel sailed. The next season, this same chief acknowledged, 
in the presence of several Americans, that the money was not 
due ; and this happened at a place where the people were justly 
esteemed to be the best on the coast. 
While the brig Thule, of New-York, was lying at Quallah- 
Battoo, several of her men deserted, whom the rajah took under 
his protection, gave them arras, and told them to shoot the captain 
if he attempted to molest them. He then negotiated with the 
captain to restore the men at a certain stipulated price. The 
men, however, were never given up ; and the captain, having lost 
several others by sickness, was compelled to leave the port with 
only seven hands, including himself, being about half her 
complement. 
Po Quallah, while at Joo-Joo, boasted of his success in taking, 
the Friendship ; and observed, to adopt his own expression — " My 
feet are now stained with blood ; and if I dip my whole body, it 
will be no worse for me in this world or the next. I will now 
cut off every American vessel that falls in my power." This 
remark implies a consciousness of wrong, even in a religious 
point of view, and the Malays, at other ports, have frequently 
admitted that the people at Quallah-Battoo deserved punishment. 
Yet it is a well-known fact, that after the piratical capture of 
the Friendship, almost every Malay on the coast exulted, consid- 
ering it a national triumph over " the invincible white man." In 
fact, on every part of the coast, as can be testified by many re- 
spectable, witnesses, they boastingly threatened that if the Amer- 
ican government did not notice the outrage at Quallah-Battoo,. 
every American vessel that visited the coast on the following 
season would suffer the fate of the Friendship. This was re- 
peatedly uttered, at ports so distant from each other, and so soon 
after the event, that it goes far to prove the piratical propensities 
of these people ; and that if they could rob and murder with im- 
punity, neither moral considerations, nor their allegiance to any 
superior power, should restrain them. 
WiUing and anxious as we are to meet the whole question, let 
it be admitted, for a moment, that among the victims of our 
justice at Quallah-Battoo, there were some innocent individuals. 
If such be the fact, no one can regret it more than ourselves, as 
