The Action at Quallah Battoo, February 6, 1832.
From an aquatint by Smith of a drawing made on board the “Potomac” in the offing.
At Muckie were three American ships, and these volunteered to go to Quallah Battoo and demand the return of the Friendship. The chief of the settlement told them to “come and take her,” when the demand was made, and with the aid of the guns that their ships carried, they did it. But the ship had been looted, the natives getting among other things $12,000 in coin. The total loss to the owners was placed at $40,000. So runs the story as told by the white traders.
A year later (February 6, 1832), the American frigate Potomac, Captain John Downes, anchored off Quallah Battoo. She was disguised as a merchantman, but when a boat went toward the shore taking soundings, the natives assumed a threatening attitude, in spite of the slovenly dress of the crew. Accordingly a midnight attack was planned and carried out. The natives had forts and cannon, and citadels within the forts, to which they retired when the outer fort-walls were carried, and where they fought with the desperation of men who preferred death to surrender. By daylight two of the forts were carried in spite of the fierce resistance. Even the women fought bravely. The wife of a chief was particularly mentioned for her courage and her skill with the sabre. They were “fighting with that undaunted firmness which is characteristic of bold and determined spirits, and displaying such an utter carelessness of life as would have honored a better cause,” as an officer of the Potomac wrote, but they could not stand against the superior tactics of the civilized race.
From one fort the Americans turned to another, and from this to three armed schooners, and from that to the main fort of all. Po Adam, who had rescued Captain Endicott, came with a body of his followers to aid the Americans, and at the last the whole settlement was overpowered and the chief fort blown up with its own magazine. The Americans had lost two killed and eleven wounded, and “of the Malays over one hundred were killed and two hundred wounded.”
A number of the natives having rallied after the Americans went afloat, the Potomac stood in and opened fire with her long thirty-twos. Overawed as much by the sound as by the projectiles (so it is said) the natives sued for peace.
In spite of this display of the vengeful power of the United States, the American ship Eclipse, while loading at a settlement called Trabangan, twelve miles from Muckie, was captured by the natives. It was on the night of August 26, 1838. Two native canoes came along with a small quantity of pepper, arriving after dark. The second mate, who had the watch on deck, recognized the leader of the party as an old acquaintance who had helped in loading the ship in former voyages, and allowed the natives to come on deck with their pepper. However, according to the ship’s custom, he took their weapons and locked them up.
The captain at this time was asleep, but at about ten o’clock he came on deck. The work of weighing the pepper began. The leader of the natives, whose name was Lebbey Ousso, complained of the second mate’s “distrust of an old friend,” in taking away the weapons, and the captain foolishly ordered the daggers returned. A few minutes later, as they were pouring pepper into the scales, the captain cried: “I am stabbed.” He died at once. An apprentice was killed at the same moment, while the second mate got a severe wound in the loins. Part of the crew plunged overboard and some took to the rigging. The cook, who was in irons for insubordination, begged for his life, and as the price of it showed where a lot of opium and coin to the amount of $18,000 were concealed. With this plunder the whole party, with the cook, fled.
As it happened, the American frigate Columbia, with the corvette John Adams, was making a tour of the world at that time, under Commodore George C. Reid. Having heard of this assault the commodore went to investigate, arriving off Quallah Battoo on December 20, 1838. Here Po Adam made haste to board the flagship, and thereafter served as interpreter. It was said that the chief of Quallah Battoo had received $2,000 of the coin stolen from the Eclipse, and that one of the murderers of Captain Wilkins lived there. But after some days of palaver the chief failed to deliver up either the coin or the criminal, and the town was bombarded. From Quallah Battoo the squadron went to Muckie, whose chief had received some of the coin, as charged by native informers, and Muckie was first bombarded, and then burned by a landing party. No attack was made on Trabangan.
It appears from Taylor’s account of this affair that one of the informers confessed that he was anxious to have Quallah Battoo destroyed in order that he might become chief of the region, while those who promoted the destruction of Muckie were sure to benefit by a transfer of Muckie’s trade to their settlements. For it was a coast of small settlements ruled by jealous and quarrelling chiefs who lived by levying duty on pepper brought from the interior.