H56 PIRACY IN THE INDIAN ARC III PEL AGO, 
notice and obtain more profit both in slaves and merchandize. 
The examples, as we shall hereafter shew, are numerous 
enough of all classes of vessels having been captured by these 
Sea Kings, but we must bear in mind, that the trade of a 
pirate is plunder and not war, and that they have no desire 
to come to blows with Europeans, when they can fill their 
pockets by the easy capture of natives. Is the devastation 
and misery however, less, because they usually cruize in 
small squadrons, instead of large fleets ? or because they 
Capture a great number of natives without risk, rather than 
a smaller number of Europeans who offer a desperate re¬ 
sistance? The result is the same. This piracy is a curse 
and not a nuisance, a disgrace to the nations, that, being 
cognizant of its existence, fail to crush it beneath the foot 
of power. 
It has been—we hope it will not long continue to be—< 
the sacrifice of the population and commerce of the Archi¬ 
pelago, the sacrifice of the good, and the peaceful inhabitants 
of the Archipelago to these marauders, and may the guilt 
rest on the heads of all who shrink from measures of ex¬ 
treme severity, or disguise the hateful and formidable features 
of this crying evil. Let us now, having given, on undeniable 
testimony, the size of their prahus, the force of the crews, 
their undoubted courage, and the number of the vessels 
which compose a fleet, proceed to show the achievements of 
these buccaneers, the vessels they have captured, the en¬ 
gagements they have fought with vessels of war, the lands 
they have invaded, and the captives they have carried away 
into captivity. 
We shall show this, on the same authorities we have 
already quoted, and we only regret that our space obliges 
us to be brief in our description, and prevents our comple¬ 
ting a picture of which few Europeans have a clear idea, 
though living in the vicinity of the countries where such 
horrors'Jhave been till recently carried on with comparative 
impunity. 
Sir Stamford Raffles in the letter above referred to writes 
“The Lanun vessels are the best native craft, that appear 
to the Eastward; they carry very heavy guns, and have re¬ 
peatedly succeeded not only in taking stout merchantmen, 
but even Dutch cruisers ” 
Again in the History of Java (vol. I p 246,) Sir Stamford 
expresses himself in the following forcible terms, “The 
pirates as they drive the peaceable and honest trader from 
the coast, recruit their numbers from among the seafaring 
