REMARKS UPON NATIVE GOVERNMENTS.

193

ten to death by them and other insects, was, we were told, commonly practised, but the climax to the tale of horror was the gambling which took place upon the capture of an unfortunate Malay woman who happened to be enceinte, the stakes depending upon whether the infant was a boy or a girl, the diabolical game concluding with the death of the mother, to decide who were winners.

Such are the cruelties perpetrated by these wretched native monarchies; such have been the miseries which throughout Pegu, Birmah, Siam, and Malayia, first one master and then another has practised upon their unhappy subjects; and yet philanthropists and politicians at home maunder about the unjust invasion of native rights, and preach against the extension of our rule, as if our Government, in its most corrupt form, would not be a blessing in such a region, and as much, if not more, our duty to extend, as a Christian people, than to allow them to remain under native rulers, and then to shoot them for following native habits. In later years, it has been my sorrow to observe among another branch of this ill-starred Malayan race-the poor Otaheitians-the evil effects of winning them from warlike habits without giving them British protection, for in that case our zeal in teaching them to turn their swords into

194 REMARKS UPON NATIVE GOVERNMENTS.

pruning-hooks, has caused them to fall an easy prey to piratical Frenchmen.

It is possible that Inchi Laa's sad tale of Malay suffering was purposely told us to prepare our minds for the bloody scene enacted upon the morrow, and to justify the horrid retaliation.

Siamese Army. Renewed Vigour in the Operations. —

The Capture of the Battery.

The Flight of the Harem.

Fugitives no longer able to escape by Sea. -Narrow Escape

of my Crew. Inchi Laa surrenders.

Struck by a Whirl

wind. — The last Broadside. — The Chiefs escape. Fort abandoned.

Quedah

THE Siamese prisoners in the hands of the Malay chieftains had, after the completion of the defences of Quedah fort, been employed digging a reservoir, called, in India, a tank, for the purpose of collecting rain. Every day these wretches were marched out to their tasks and brought back again; but on the day after the visit of the Inchi, we observed that a more than usual number of Malays accompanied them, and that several chiefs of importance were among the escort.

The spot was too distant for us to see all that took place, but our attention was attracted by piteous cries and loud shouts, and the rush and confusion of an

196

THE ALARMED BARBER,

evident mêlée: the Malays in the garrison crowded upon the parapet, and appeared very excited in voice and gesture. Suddenly, a Chinaman from the town was seen running towards our anchorage, followed, directly his object was observed, by a couple of Malays; several shots were fired at the fugitive, but when under cover of our vessels, we discharged a musket over his head, to show we claimed him, and his pursuers resigned him to our custody. I never, before or since, saw a man so horror-stricken as this Chinese barber was poor for he had all the instruments of his trade about him, and had, apparently, dropped his razor and fled, stricken by some sudden fear. With much ado the man was soothed into telling us, crying all the while with nervous excitement, that the noise which was just subsiding on shore, had been the death-shrieks of all the ill-fated Siamese prisoners; that Tonkoo Mahomet Typeetam had been burning for revenge ever since his late discomfiture at Allegagou, and the Malays generally were frantic at the horrors perpetrated on their countrymen in retaliation, therefore, they had that morning marched out three hundred Siamese (all they had in their hands) to the margin of the tank, and there drawing his creese, Type-etam had given the signal to fall on, by plunging it into the

MASSACRE OF THE PRISONERS.

197

body of a prisoner; and the bodies were thrown into the tank, which lay in the road over which the Siamese troops must advance to the capture of Quedah. The Chinaman happened to be a witness of the massacre, and not knowing whether Type-etam might not take it into his head to clear off the Chinese likewise, he, like a prudent barber, decamped at

once.

The murderers marched back soon afterwards, and lying, as we now did, close to the stockade, we did not think, from their appearance, they looked very elated with their bloody achievement; still one or two ruffians were very excited, and waved their spears and muskets, as if promising us a similar fate should we fall into their hands. I need hardly say we were most indignant at such a cold-blooded act of cruelty, and it would have been an evil hour for Type-etam, had he fallen into the hands of our people even Jadee declared it unmanly, and, as usual, took great care to explain to me, that the gentlemanly dogs by whom he had been brought up would have acted very differently.

I upbraided Inchi Laa, the next time he visited us, for such an inhuman return to our captain's generous treatment of their defenceless women and children, and reminded him that, as pirates, there