1832.] ISLAND OP SUMATRA. 223 
of any crime, from which they are not restrained by the fear of 
punishment. In confirmation of this fact we have numerous 
incidents before us, with one of which only we shall trouble the 
reader. 
Soon after the affair of the Friendship, the brig Homer, Captain 
Loveitt, came to anchor off Quallah-Battoo ; and though he hap- 
pened to be, from vague rumour, aware that something wrong had 
occurred, he was not exactly acquainted with what it was ; and, 
in consequence, went directly and confidently on shore in his 
boat with two men. He had the precaution, however, to order 
his men in the boat to shove off to some distance from the beach, 
while he advanced to communicate with the rajahs. 
It was not many minutes before he found himself a prisoner, 
and surrounded by a vast number of armed Malays, determined 
to despatch him. They held a solemn debate among themselves 
on the policy of the measure ; the amount of which, together 
with their fatal determination, was communicated to the captain 
by one of the minority, in broken English. Expostulations he 
knew would be fruitless, and he was about resigning himself to 
the dreadful fate which appeared inevitably to await him, when 
an aged Achenese arose, and with the usual salutatory gesture, 
spoke on the unpopular side of the question. His arguments in 
favour of the prisoner were not appeals to their justice or humanity, 
but to their self-interest. He maintained that if they laid violent 
hands on the captain, the getting possession of his vessel was 
still a very doubtful matter ; while, in either case, the loss of the 
American trade was equally certain. Here was much to lose 
and nothing to gain. This argument was deemed unanswerable, 
and the captain was finally restored to liberty. 
The same kind of feeling at that time pervaded the natives 
along the whole coast, and the same sentiments were boldly and 
hourly expressed up to the .period of the Potomac's arrival. The 
Malays daily became more insolent and presuming, and without 
the most incessant vigilance and wary precaution, no American's 
life was safe. Many of the pepper planters, who had become 
ruined by the indulgence of their extravagant and dissipated pro- 
pensities, sometimes staking a whole crop on a single cock-fight, 
were no better than reckless desperadoes, inciting and urging each 
other to acts of piracy and murder ; while others, of more power 
