boats, with
fresh men and officers, quitted the Vixen, and arrived at the forts
shortly after daylight. I accompanied this party; and the work of
destruction, well begun yesterday, was this day completed. Numerous
proofs of the piracies of this Seriff came to light. The boom was
ingeniously fastened with the chain cable of a vessel of 300 or 400
tons; other chains were found in the town; a ship's long-boat; two
ship's bells, one ornamented with grapes and vine leaves, and marked
'Wilhelm Ludwig, Bremen;' and every other description of ship's
furniture. Some half-piratical boats, Illanun and Balagnini, were
burned; twenty-four or twenty-five brass guns captured; the iron
guns, likewise stated to have been got out of a ship, were spiked
and otherwise destroyed. Thus has Malluda ceased to exist; and Seriff
Houseman's power received a fall from which it will never recover.

"Amid this scene of war and devastation was one episode which moved
even harder hearts than mine. Twenty-four hours after the action,
a poor woman, with her child of two years of age, was discovered in
a small canoe; her arm was shattered at the elbow by a grape shot;
and the poor creature lay dying for want of water in an agony of
pain, with her child playing round her and endeavoring to derive
the sustenance which the mother could no longer give. This poor
woman was taken on board the Vixen, and in the evening her arm was
amputated. To have left her would have been certain death; so I
was strongly for the measure of taking her to Sarawak, where she
can be protected. To all my inquiries she answered, 'If you please
to take me, I shall go. I am a woman, and not a man; I am a slave,
and not a free woman: do as you like.' She stated too, positively,
that she herself had seen Seriff Houseman wounded in the neck, and
carried off; and her testimony is corroborated by two Manilla men, who,
among others, ran away on the occasion, and sought protection from us,
who likewise say that they saw the Seriff stretched out in the jungle,
but they cannot say whether dead or wounded. The proof how great a
number must have been killed and wounded on their part is, that on
the following day ten dead men were counted lying where they fell;
among them was Seriff Mahomed, the bearer of the flag of truce, who,
though offered our protection, fought to the last, and in the agonies
of death threw a spear at his advancing foes.

"The remnant of the enemy retired to Bungun; and