I ate eighteenth and early nineteenth century trade in the Far East by major European powers was based on monopolistic traffic, each with its own colonies, in the mercantilist tradition. American trade, on the other hand, was the result of an effort to find previously untapped sources of profit in East Asia and the Pacific area. One of the most flourishing and profitable trading enterprises of the period for America and for the port of Salem, Massachusetts, in particular, was the pepper trade with Sumatra.
Captain Johnathan Carnes, in command of the brig Rajah out of Salem, was apparently the first American to bring a cargo of Sumatran pepper to an American port. The owners of the Rajah realized a profit of 700% on Carnes’ first cargo, brought to Salem in October, 1799. There was an attempt to withhold information concerning the source of the pepper, but the year 1803 saw twenty- one vessels out of Salem trading for pepper in Sumatra and by 1820 the number reached forty vessels a year.
The pepper trade, though very popular, was anything but peaceful and honest. There are records of attacks on Salem vessels as early as 1801, only two years after Captain Carnes’ first successful voyage. A few Americans are reported to have provoked the attacks by under-handed trading methods. Some used quicksilver in hollow beamed scales to cheat the Malays, and others weighed anchor with a full cargo for which there had been no payment.
The warlike nature of the Malays, coupled with bad feeling toward American traders, led them to incur the official wrath of the United States government in 1831, when they attacked and seized the Salem ship Friendship, while she was anchored off Quallah-Battoo, Sumatra. The Friendship was later recovered by force, and her Captain, Charles M. Endicott, returned to Salem with his report on July 16, 1831. According to a statement made by the Captain, Friendship “ . . . was rifled of almost every move- able article on board, and scarcely anything but her pepper remaining.”
Of the Friendship’s crew of seventeen officers and men, three, including the Chief Officer, had been killed, and four wounded. The press was sympathetic toward the affair, and soon public opinion backed the owners of the Friendship, who sought to obtain government aid to make good their losses and gain revenge for American lives lost.
On July 20, 1831, four days after Captain Endicott’s return to Salem, the owners of the Friendship made their losses known to the President of the United States. Word of the tragedy had preceded the vessel’s return, however. A letter received by the Friendship’s owners from the Secretary of the Navy reads, in part:
“Gentlemen—Your communication to the President of the 20th instant has this day been received and referred to this department.
“I feel happy in assuring you that since the 19th instant, every preparation has been making to demand immediate redress for the outrage committed.”
The United States frigate Potomac under command of Commodore John Downes was the vessel selected by the Secretary of the Navy to represent the United States and the Friendship’s owners in the affair. The Potomac was already fitted for a Pacific cruise, and all that was necessary for further preparation was a change of orders.
As outlined in a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, Downes’ orders, in part, state that upon reaching Quallah-Battoo he was to “obtain . . . information ... in respect to the nature of the government there, the piratical character of the population, and the flagrant circumstances of the injury before mentioned, [referring to the seizure of the Friendship] ... to demand of . . . authorities at Quallah-Battoo, restitution of the property plundered, ... satisfaction for any other depredations committed there on our commerce, and immediate punishment of those concerned in the murder of the American citizens.”
If the demands quoted above were not complied with in a reasonable length of time, Commodore Downes was given an alternative: “ . . . having taken precaution to cut off all opportunity to escape . . . you will proceed to seize the actual murderers, if they are known, ... to retake . . . stolen property ... to destroy the boats and vessels of any kind engaged in the piracy, and the forts and dwellings near the scene of aggression ... to give public information . . . that if full restitution is not speedily made, and forebearance exercised hereafter . . . other ships-of-war will soon be dispatched thither to inflict more ample punishment.”
The diplomacy of Commodore Downes was intended to be the result of these carefully worded instructions, which may be restated as four major objectives of Downes’ mission: first, that the Malays be shown the might of the American flag, however remote Sumatra might be from the United States; second, that the actual murderers of the three Americans on the ship Friendship be tried and punished—along with those responsible for the attack on that vessel; third, that the losses suffered by the Friendship’s owners be recovered, either by the return of the goods stolen, or by payment; and fourth, that peaceful relations - with the Malays, especially the several Rajahs who ruled Quallah-Battoo, be restored.
The fourth objective above, if accomplished, would have far reaching results. The pepper trade was quite profitable to both the United States and Sumatra, and to have it continue peacefully, with none of the previous distrust and misunderstanding, would greatly benefit both parties.
The problems that Commodore Downes had to overcome in carrying out his instructions were difficult and numerous. As may be seen from a study of the nature of the Malays, their customs, laws, and system of government, along with information concerning the Friendship incident, realization of two of his major objectives was highly improbable. Almost every person at Quallah-Battoo shared in the loot taken from the Friendship, reducing greatly the odds of its recovery. And to make peace with a group of near savages who divided their allegiance among several rival rajahs was a feat that had yet to be accomplished.
Downes was handicapped further by the fact that he was not a trained diplomat, however great his experience in dealing with foreign peoples may have been as a natural result of his profession. He had little knowledge of the Malays, and there were but few sources of information available to him. His information concerning the attack on the Friendship was derived solely from his orders, and these orders had as a source Captain Endicott’s report, undoubtedly a biased view. The force at Downes’ disposal numbered half the Malays’ fighting force. The Potomac’s guns had, of course, much greater fire power than the Malays possessed, but the latter were emplaced in well constructed, well concealed forts, from which they could strongly resist a land attack and be fairly safe from bombardment from the sea.
Commodore Downes’ course of action in complying with his orders, despite the problems involved, was tempered with good judgment and sound decision. En route to Quallah-Battoo, Downes put in at Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town to seek information concerning the Malays and the Friendship incident. What he learned at both ports greatly influenced the decisions he later made in carrying out his mission. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy written a year after the attack on Quallah-Battoo, Downes states: “At Rio de Janeiro, I obtained such information relative to the character of the people of Quallah-Battoo as went strongly to impress me with the opinion, that a demand made on the rajahs, previous to my getting them into my power or to taking any steps toward cutting off the retreat of participators in the outrage committed on the Friendship, must have led to an utter defeat of the expedition.”
High ranking British Army and Navy officials at Cape Town corroborated this intelligence with the following additions: “the natives were ... by no means to be trusted . . . [and were] not subject to any regular government. . . . [They] could . . . retire . . . beyond the reach pf our guns, and beyond the possibility of pursuit.”
On the basis of the above information, Commodore Downes made two preparations which had not been considered necessary previously. A landing force and a ship’s force were designated from the ship’s crew. The organization of the landing force is a good example of Downes’ thoroughness. It compares favorably, in principle, with an assault company of World War II in that it was comprised of an assault division (Marines), two rifle divisions, and a weapons division, corresponding roughly to the rifle and weapons platoons of today. As Downes could not draw upon an artillery battalion or a pioneer battalion, he provided one artillery piece for force fire support, and carpenters equipped with ax and crow bar for facilitating entrance to the forts. Two carpenters were assigned to each division.
Once the landing force was formed and undergoing Marine supervised training, Downes began his second preparation. He disguised his ship in order to conceal his true intentions from the Malays. According to Francis Warriner, schoolmaster aboard the Potomac: “The ship was disguised by running in the guns on the main deck, fore and aft, closing the ports, and putting in the bucklers, and painting every other port white, while the hammocks were piped down and the cloths thrown over the spar deck guns. Having also stump topgallant masts up, our ship resembled, at a distance, a large Indiaman.”
The above alterations proved to be very successful. On the day preceding the attack, some native fishermen approached the Potomac, thinking she was a trading vessel, and attempted to sell fish. They did not suspect the true nature of the vessel until they were close alongside. They were captured to prevent any possibility of their warning the inhabitants of Quallah-Battoo.
As the Potomac anchored off Quallah-Battoo with all preparations made, Downes was faced with a situation requiring a quick and accurate decision. The Malays were as yet uninformed of the intentions of the ship, a fact which facilitated a surprise attack. The information supplied Downes at Rio and Cape Town also supported the advisability of an immediate attack. On the other hand, there was still a chance of peaceful settlement of the wrongs to the Friendship if contact was made with the rajahs. The latter course involved risk of complete failure if the natives retired to the jungle upon hearing Downes’ ultimatum as outlined in his orders. Downes chose to attempt a parley, but in such a way as not to alarm the natives. He sent a party ashore by small boat, with the First Lieutenant, Mr. Shu- brick, in charge. The group was dressed in merchant sailor attire, Mr. Shubrick posing as the Captain of the pseudo trading ship. Commodore Downes’ precautions proved themselves justifiable, for a mob of armed Malays prevented the Americans from either contacting the rajahs or learning about the defenses of the town. There was no recourse but to inform the Malays that the Potomac would trade for pepper the following day and report failure to Commodore Downes. Upon return of the boat to the Potomac and after hearing Lieutenant Shubrick’s report, Downes ordered all hands to prepare for a landing, which was to take place that same night—February 6, 1832. Downes also gave his officers their orders. The force was to surround the town and demand the custody of the murderers, along with the return of the property stolen from the Friendship. Women and children were to be spared.
The landing itself was perfectly executed. The ships’ landing force of two hundred and fifty men was transported to the beach in small boats, was formed in ranks, and marched off to engage the enemy in his forts. The force was undetected and unopposed until the leading division neared the first fort, when the alarm was given by a native who spotted the approaching column in a chance encounter. Lieutenant Shubrick, in over-all command of the landing force, then divided the column into three parts, each to attack a fort. Two forts were subdued by the single division assigned to each, and two more were taken after a combined attack by the entire force.
American casualties were extremely light, with two men killed and eleven wounded. Of an estimated five hundred Malay fighting men, it is generally conceded that about one hundred and fifty were killed and many wounded. The Malays suffered great material losses as a result of the attack and of a bombardment by the Potomac the next day. According to Lieutenant Shubrick’s report to Commodore Downes: “We captured one pair of colours, twenty-six stand of arms, and one brass fieldpiece. We also set fire to and destroyed a number of proas on the stocks. The cannon in all the forts, with the exception of one, being of iron, were spiked and thrown over the parapet, and the powder destroyed.” Commodore Downes included Shubrick’s report in his own communication to the Secretary of the Navy and amplified it with a general summary of the events at Quallah-Battoo from arrival to departure. It is interesting to note that Downes made no mention of his order issued before the attack to attempt an encircling maneuver on the town. He accepted the responsibility of his junior’s failure by a rather devious method. His report states: “No precautions were taken to cut off the opportunity of escape from any inhabitants of the town, the nature of the place rendering it absolutely impossible.”
When Downes’ report reached the Secretary of the Navy and was made public, the press severely criticized the Commodore for having been too harsh with the Malays. Official reaction was somewhat different. The Secretary of the Navy’s report of 1832 summed up Downes’ action as “The chastisement inflicted by the frigate Potomac on the piratical Malays.”
The Secretary also reported that the Malays had been quiet since the Potomac’s visit, but that no chances would be taken, and ships-of-war would stop at Quallah-Battoo occasionally to keep close contact with activities there.
The President communicated to Commodore Downes through the Secretary of the Navy and expressed mixed approval and disapproval of Downes’ action. A portion of the Secretary’s letter states:
The President regrets that you were not able before attacking the Malays at Quallah-Battoo, to obtain there, or near, fuller information of the particulars of their outrage on the Friendship, and of the character and political relations of the aggressors.
It was desirable, also, that previous demand should have been made for restitution and indemnification ... at the same time, the president wishes me to express his highest commendation for the coolness, firmness, and skill, evinced by yourself, officers, and men, in the whole attack; and hopes that the best consequences to our trade and national character will result from it, in that region of the world.
The President also requested that Downes report the affair in greater detail and state reasons for all actions taken “since it may hereafter become material.” There is no further communication available, or any record of the President’s opinion of Downes’ second report. It is assumed here that either the President approved of the amplifying report, or that he considered the incident officially closed with his annual message to Congress of 1832, as this message preceded Downes’ second report by six months.
A comparison of the results of the attack with the four general objectives of Downes’ mission shows that only one was fully accomplished. The Malays were shown quite forcibly the might of the United States and that distance was no deterrent in carrying out a mission of revenge with that might. Retribution for American lives lost was accomplished at the rate of thirty Malays killed for every American death.
Of the forty thousand dollar loss reported to the Secretary of the Navy by the Friendship’s owners, only the ship’s medicine chest was recovered and returned to Salem. The actual murderers that participated in the Friendship incident were never apprehended, though the Potomac’s attack may have taken the lives of some of them.
As for insuring peaceful trading relations in the future, Downes evidently thought that the action taken under his command was sufficient. The rajahs of Quallah-Battoo made many promises concerning cessation of attacks on American vessels, and Downes, in keeping with his orders, warned the Malays that other American warships would repeat the actions of the Potomac if any report of violence was received by the United States government. Downes’ conclusions were incorrect, for in 1838, just five years after the Potomac weighed anchor at Quallah-Battoo, the Malays had to be punished again for attacks on trading vessels.
Downes’ mission, from a careful consideration of its results, was a failure. Too much was expected from a one-ship demonstration in the first place, and, secondly, Downes was faced with peoples who understood force only. The force demonstrated and applied by the Potomac was insufficient. There is some basis to the argument that Downes’ accomplishments, if any, at Quallah-Battoo led to an increase in trade with the East. If investigated, this argument proves to be valid only for a limited period of time, for Malay piracies began anew soon after the Potomac’s visit to Sumatra, again impairing America’s confidence in Eastern trade.