PIRACY IN THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, 25$ 
men to whom he used to give employment* The decay of 
commerce is accelerated, and the natives retreat into the 
interior, when, for want of a market, they cease to collect the 
rich productions of their country, and rapidly sink into 
poverty and barbarism The sea and the coast remain a 
scene of violence, rapine and cruelty—the mouths of the rivers 
are held by lawless banditti, who interrupt the trade ot those 
who inhabit their banks, and capture the vessels destined for the 
inland towns, the bays and harbours are entirely within their 
power, and in these smooth seas, they are never driven a 
moment from their stations, or diverted by danger from their 
predatory vigilance ** 
We must refer the reader to the well known and common! 
work from which we have quoted, but I cannot forbear 
extracting the following remarkable passage so directly in 
contradiction of the writer in the Examiner “ The practice 
of piracy, writes Sir Stamford Raffles, is now an evil so 
extensive and formidable that it can be put down by th© 
strong hand alone.” 
How dark and lamentable is the picture here drawn by a 
talented and amiable person, and the impartial testimony of 
this great man is fully borne out by other and subsequent 
authorities. Mr Crawfurd, on the authority of Monsieur Van 
Angelbeck, allows that piracy is a terrible scourge—(“ce 
terrible fleau”) Vol. II p. 241),“ Possession Neerlandaises”- 
The description of piracy in the pages of Monsieur Tem- 
minck’s work just quoted, is even darker and more frightful 
than that found in the works of Sir Stamford Raffles. How 
melancholy is the following passage for instance. “On ne 
saurait disconvenir que les ann6es 1826 et 1827, mime jus* 
qu’en 1829 n’aient etefatales pour la navigation et le commerce 
dans les mers de PArchipel; plusieurs captures faites dans ces 
aunees par les pirates, constatent ce fait. Vol. II p. 24L. 
Brevity alone, obliges us to omit many similar passages 
from this and other works, and the testimony of Sir James 
Brooke fully bears out the statements of Raffles, of Craw¬ 
ford, of Temminck, of Seibold, and numerous other autho¬ 
rities on this subject. 
In spite, however, of such evidence as we have now adduced, 
the writer in the Ex miner asserts that the pirates of the 
Eastern Archipelago, are “ a nuisance but they are not for¬ 
midable !” 
This frightful system of rapine and violence is smoothed 
drwn into a common nuisance , and the public, unacquainted 
with the condition of these countries is led to believe that 
