after a short struggle. The inhuman pirates then murdered most of the crew, and mutilated those whose lives they deigned to spare. Shortly afterwards another British cruiser hove in sight, whereupon the robbers abandoned both vessels, and taking to their boats, escaped among the shoals. The scene on the captured vessel's deck was most revolting: the commander was hanging dead by his heels, his nose and ears being cut off, and many of the crew were treated with the same atrocious barbarity.

The Bombay Presidency now adopted steps for immediate punishment, and equipped an armament every way equal to the object. The naval force consisted of the Liverpool of 50 guns, Eden of 26, Curlew of 18, several Company's cruisers, and a flotilla of gun and mortar boats and transports, under the command of the present Sir Francis Collier. In these vessels were embarked Major-General Sir W. G. Keir, and nearly 4000 men, consisting of his Majesty's 47th and 65th regiments of foot, one regiment of sepauhis or seapoys, the flank companies of some other native regiments, with a party of artillery and engineers. This force was joined, after having sailed, by several frigates belonging to our ally, the Imaum of Muscat, who had been sorely dealt with by the marauders. Such was the armament fitted out to meet the exigencies of the case, and the most perfect harmony prevailed, as it ever should, between the soldiers, sailors, and civilians.

On the 2nd of December, 1819, the expedition arrived before Ras al Khymah, which was now seen to be in good repair, with high walls built of mud and stone, and flanked by heavy ramparts, while the whole sea-front was fortified by batteries at regular intervals. After the landing was effected, our forces were joined by about 2000 of the Imaum's troops, who had forced their passage through the defiles; but the King of Persia, it would seem, viewed our operations with some jealousy, and discouraged the co-operation of the Prince of Schiraz. Scarcely was the camp formed and the fortress invested, when the gallant daring of the Arab warriors astonished the invaders; and a handto-hand encounter with them in our own trenches-which they attacked under cover of night-proved their desperate and reckless courage, for the conflict continued until they were all bayoneted. Such wild bravery, however, was doomed to succumb to the steady discipline and fortitude to which it was opposed. After a cannonade of several days, orders were given to storm the place; but on the advance of our combined forces towards the breach, the pirates retreated in the opposite direction. The union-jack immediately floated over the blood-red flag of Sheikh Hassan-ben-Ali, and steps were forthwith taken to dismantle and raze the fortifications.

This having been done as a measure of retaliation, it was considered politic to endeavour to draw the people to some other mode of subsistence than that of plunder, by every reasonable kindness; the Sheikh was therefore liberated, and the amahu, or promise of personal safety, was extended to all the inhabitants who had fled. A new fort was then laid out, in order to receive a sufficient garrison for carrying the measures into execution, and restoring confidence to the traders. The expedition then invested and carried the important hill-fort of Zayab, and proceeded afterwards to the different harbours in the vicinity, where they demolished the defences, and captured or destroyed all the free

booting vessels and small craft with such diligence and effect, that it is hoped Ras al Khymah can never fall into its former infamy.

The personal courage of these barbarians, and the expertness with which they handle their dreadful swords and daggers, though unavailing against regular forces, render them truly formidable in desultory attack and sea-robbery. We have had various instances cited to us of the coolness and contempt of death which they evince. The Imaum of Muscat had a feud with a predatory tribe of Arabs, known by the name of Beni-bu-Ali, who by their naval piracies had also incurred our displeasure. In October, 1820, Captain Thompson having joined the Imaum's troops with a body of seapoys, proceeded against them; but while on the march was suddenly attacked with such determination, that the seapoys gave way, and a great number were speared, krissed, or cut to pieces. To repair this disgrace, a considerable force, consisting both of European and native troops, was dispatched from Bombay, under the command of the present Sir Lionel Smith. Hardly had the expedition encamped at Sohar, when a most gallant attempt was made by the enemy to surprise our camp. A dark compact body was suddenly discerned silently approaching the trenches. The advanced piquets were instantly cut down; and the best men who flew to the encounter, were as instantly sabred or stabbed, many of them even after they had bayoneted the foe who struck them. The ability with which they wielded their death-dealing swords in this sharp conflict has been described to us as really wonderful, and their steadiness in the assault was equally admirable; nor did they retreat till upwards of 200 of their companions were killed on the spot: our loss, according to the best statements, amounted to 37 killed and 181 wounded. The tribe was afterwards completely annihilated.

These exertions of the King's squadrons, the Company's cruizers, and the army detachments, having in some measure suppressed piracy in the vicinity of the Peninsula, we will now turn to the Eastern Archipelago, where it has become a systematic calling, and where many Europeans of both sexes languish at this moment in hopeless captivity. Those waters have been notorious for maritime depredations from our first acquaintance with them; nor have the Malays and Chinese been the only pirates that infested them. So far back as from 1600 to 1614, when the Company attempted to open a trade with China, both from Firando and Tywan, they experienced the determined hostility of the Dutch, who not only opposed them by open measures of competition, but also stirred up the hatred of the Chinese against British subjects, by pretending to be English pirates, and as such, under English colours, attacking and capturing the Chinese trading junks, from whom "it is certain that they took great riches." Had the records of our first intercourse with the Celestial Empire been as copious as those respecting our earliest voyages to India, some atrocious particulars of these misdeeds would have descended; but it is singular that while the latter have been so full and satisfactory, none of the former have been preserved; and we know little more than what is afforded by some memoranda in the "Annals of the Company."

The Ladrones of the islands which stud the southern coasts of China form a very numerous and organised body, with a fleet of at least 500 well-manned vessels, of from 10 to 250 tons, the largest carrying twelve

guns of various calibre, and the others armed according to their capacity, having, besides the ordnance, abundance of small arms, spears, swords, and boarding krisses. They are under strict discipline, and often evince great bravery, to which we have more than once been eye-witness. In 1805, while lying in the Typa, we saw a single Ladrone vessel engage a Portuguese corvette, and three heavy Mandarin junks, for full five hours, when she was sunk, only one of her boats escaping,-an act of fortitude which excited no small admiration in our tars, who criticised the conduct of the corvette in such terms of contempt as sailors love to employ. As to the Chinese men-of-war, they, as usual, displayed many flags and streamers, burned abundance of joss-lights, and made what an old navigator expressively termed “ a most hellish sound" with their gongs; but they contrived also, as usual, to keep their foes at a very respectable distance, and therefore were not much mauled. About a week afterwards, a Ladrone fleet of upwards of fifty sail approached the anchorage, for the avowed purpose of wreaking vengeance on all the Portuguese and Mandarin vessels at Macao,-an act which we could not permit. The moment that the much-dreaded craft appeared off the point, all the sampans and other boats quitted the creeks and hung round our ship like a swarm of bees, imploring our interference, and vociferously begging Mr. Drummond (now Lord Strathallan), the supra-cargo, who was accidentally on board, to second their prayer with the captain. Meanwhile the Ladrones approached, in an orderly line, within range, when we let fly a few of the maindeck guns, to indicate the part we meant to act; on which, acknowledging our compliment by a single well-directed shot, they bore away by signal, leaving us amid the grateful and joyful acclamations of the Chinese and Tartars. admiral made a merit of this retreat by declaring it was not his wish to quarrel with the English Ladrones-for such is the distinction they give to men-of-war, from their carrying no cargo.

The

The power and influence of these pirates, though sometimes checked, are very great. All vessels are liable to their attacks, except such as have purchased passes of them; and the open littoral towns and villages also have to compound for immunity. If the captured ship happens to have made a fierce resistance, they in general murder some of the crew, and torment the rest with cruel tortures. Europeans and persons of distinction are generally detained for ransom, and are often very harshly treated during the negociation; but when a Mandarin junk has the misfortune to fall into their fangs, the crew are mostly inhumanly butchered, being nailed to the deck, beaten almost to death with twisted rattans, and then cut to pieces.

The fortitude of these men in calamity has excited the admiration of their greatest enemies, though Edmund Scott says, "this valour is only where there is no remedy." And most severely did this brute test it, on a miserable wretch who was detected in the act of incendiarism, and refused to discover his accomplices: were it not related by himself, even St. Dominic could give the story no credence. "Because of his obstinacy," says the infernal monster, "and that he had set our house on fire, I caused him to be burnt, by means of sharp irons thrust under the nails of his thumbs, fingers, and toes, and the nails to be torn off; and because he never flinched, we thought his hands and feet had been benumbed with tying, wherefore we burnt him in other parts, as the

hands, arms, shoulders, and neck, but even this had no effect. We then burnt him quite through the hands, and tore out the flesh and sinews with rasps, causing his shins to be knocked with hot searing-irons. I then caused cold iron screws to be screwed into the bones of his arms, and suddenly snatched out, and to break all the bones of his fingers and toes with pincers. Yet, for all this, he never shed a tear, neither once turned his head aside, nor stirred hand or foot; but, when we asked a question, he would put his tongue between his teeth, and strike his chin on his knees to bite it off. After using the utmost extremity of torture in vain, I made him again be laid fast in irons, when the ants, which greatly abound there, got into his wounds and tormented him worse than we had done, as might be seen by his gestures. The king's officers desired me to shoot him to death, which I thought too good a death for such a villain; but as they insisted, we led him out into the fields and made him fast to a stake. The first shot carried away a piece of his arm, bone and all; the next went through his breast near the shoulder, on which he bent down his head and looked at the wound. At the third shot, one of our men used a bullet cut in three pieces, which struck his breast in a triangle, on which he sunk as low as the stake would allow. Finally, between our men and the Hollanders, he was shot almost in pieces."

Pirates have long reigned lords of the oriental waters, and many a ship was termed "missing," and supposed foundered, that had been sacked and destroyed, before their treachery was fully known. Captain Davis, who carried out Sir E. Michelburne to India, in 1604, having anchored at Patani with his two ships, they were both boarded by men whom they had treated "courteously and with feastings." A desperate fight ensued, in which Davis fell under many mortal stabs, and the assailants refusing quarter, were all killed except one man, before possession could be regained. Captain Alexander Hamilton, who was in India from 1688 to 1723, was himself nearly cut off at BanjarMasseen, when four English ships were suddenly attacked by above one hundred proas. The two largest ships, after a hot contest, were saved, principally by getting boarding-nettings up; but the smaller were both burnt, with most of their men. The carnage among the Malays was very great, there being above 1500 killed, besides many wounded and maimed; but the English were also so weakened and dispirited, that they quitted their new settlement.

Such instances are numerous to a melancholy amount; and one which occurred while we were on that station afforded proof of the undiminished ferocity of the pirates. The Victor, a sloop-of-war of 18 guns and 114 men, being off Java, on the 15th of April, 1807, brought three proas to, and as it fell calm, she anchored at about 5 P. M., and brought two of the vessels alongside to overhaul them, while the other hung upon the quarter. The prisoners, amounting to about 120, were taken out of those alongside, and a strong guard placed over them; but as the crew of the proa on the quarter refused to come from under hatches, Captain Bell ordered a carronade and some musketry to be dis charged into her, which they returned by throwing spears and firing pistols. A gun was then got out of the stern port to fire on her, the sparks of which most unfortunat communicated to a quantity of gunpowder, which had been careless aded out of the other proas, and

blew the after-part of the ship up; at which alarming moment, the guard over the prisoners dropped their arms, and ran to extinguish the flames. The prisoners instantly seized the arms, and also picked up several spears and knives which had been thrown on board and commenced a bloody conflict. By this time, about 8 P. M., the fire, most providentially, had given way to the extreme exertions of the officers and men, the proas were cut adrift, and the attention of all hands directed to the defence of the ship, which was admirably performed; for, in little more than half an hour, 80 of the enemy lay dead in a most mangled state, the rest were driven overboard. The scene was described to us afterwards by the gallant defenders, as truly distressing and extraordinary, from the united effects of slaughter, fire, and darkness; nor was the ship preserved to his Majesty's service without the loss of her first lieutenant (Blaxton) and five seamen killed outright, her commander, gunner, and 24 men, wounded by the Malays, or dreadfully burnt by the explosion; and most of the wounded died after the Victor's arrival at Pulo Penang.

Among the tribes of the Indian islands, the most noted for their piracies are, of course, the least industrious, and particularly such as are unaccustomed to follow agriculture or trade as regular pursuits: such are the Malays inhabiting the small islands about the eastern extremity of the Straits of Malacca, and those lying between Sumatra and Borneo, down to, Bilitin and Karimata, whose religion being, as old Hamilton termed it, “a sort of scoundrel Mahometism," offers no restraint to villainy. Still more noted than these are the natives of certain islands situated between Borneo and the Philippines, of whom the most desperate and enterprising are the Sooloos and Illanoons, the former inhabiting the well-known archipelago of the same name, and the latter being one of the numerous nations of Mindanao. The Sooloo pirates chiefly confine their depredations to the Philippine isles, which they have continued to infest, with little interruption, for nearly 300 years, in open defiance of the Spanish authority, and the numerous establishments maintained to check them. The robberies of the Illanoons, on the contrary, are more widely extended, being carried on all the way from their native country to the Spice Islands on one side, and to the Straits of Malacca on the other. A flotilla of gun-vessels, of from 20 to 60 tons each, are constantly kept in a state of equipment at Manilla, to act against these rovers; and several forts have been built to control them, of which the principal one is at Sambeangan, on Mindanao itself. These, however, are but slight checks to the enterprise of the Moors, who sometimes land in the night and carry off the natives from under the very walls of the forts. Individuals of the garrisons, venturing any distance from their station, are made prisoners; nor will their captors give them up without a ransom suited to their rank. There is a particular fund from the Order of Mercy, at Manilla, which is solely appropriated to aid the private funds of those who are thus funfortunate, and to obtain their release. The monks of this order are generally sent over on the negociation.

Besides those who are avowed pirates, a great number of the Malayan princes, rajahs, pangrans, dupattis, and bujis,-must be considered as accessories to their crimes, since they afford them protection, contribute to their outfit, and often share in their booty; so that a piratical proa is