PIRACY ESf THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 255 
When the author of the article in the 'Edinburgh Review , 
describing a smaller kind of pirate prahus, asserts them to be 
from 8 to 10 tons, the writer in the Examiner remarks that 
they are in fact no better than “ herring 'boats” and then 
proceeds to make some very whimsical calculations, as he had 
just before done, proving that every fleet, whether national or 
piratical was to be calculated as composed of the aggregate of 
the very largest class of vessel, or the very smallest ; for 
instance:—a first-rate in H. M. Service carries a war com¬ 
plement of 1,000 men, and should a writer after the description 
of a first-rate, be describing a schooner, carrying 20 men, 
one of a fleet of 100 vessels, the writer in the Examiner 
would conclude the complement in men, of the fleet mentioned, 
amounted either to 100,000 men or 2,000 men, and either way 
he would be as wrong, as he has been in the article we now 
notice. 
These very u herring boats” however, which the writer 
asserts could not accommodate more than 15 men a piece, 
are a class of vessel of which he is evidently totally ignorant, 
and it will be worth while to describe a boat of the class cer¬ 
tainly not ten ton, and allow the writer to judge, how far his 
conclusion is correct. Two hundred vessels of the sort, some 
larger some smaller, are to be found in the Sarebus rivers, but * 
as a type we prefer to take the measure of a Sarawak boat, 
which is now lying in that river, and which may be seen by any 
person curious enough on the subject—her length is 60 feet, 
her breadth 9 feet 6 inches, and her depth 2 feet 6 inches. Ne¬ 
vertheless this “ herring boat” (which in tonnage carries 
absolutely next to nothing) has a regular complement of 60 
men and sometimes more. The writer however positively 
asserts and would have us believe, that a boat of eight or ten 
tons cannot accommodate more than 15 men!! 
These facts will shew, we believe, that the pirates of the 
Eastern Archipelago possess a very large and dangerous class 
of vessel, and that their fleets are very numerous and very 
formidable. That these fleets are all composed of the largest 
class of vessel or the smallest, as the writer would have us 
imagine, we do not believe, but if we give the Lanun, Balanini 
or Dyak fleets at a moderate computation an average of 35 
men to each boat, we shall have 7,000 buccaneers out at once, 
and we cannot suppose for an instant, that all the fighting 
men are out at one time, or that these fleets always remain 
together ; on the contrary, their safety and their interests point 
out a superior mode of action for obtaining plunder, and they 
usually divide into moderate parties, and thus attract the less 
