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. [Illustration: Bombardment of Muckie and Landing of a Force to Burn the Town. _From an engraving by Osborne in “The Flagship,” published, 1840, by D. Appleton & Co._] From Muckie the squadron returned to Quallah Battoo. The chief, known as Po Chute Abdullah, gave his note for $2,000, the sum that he confessed had been distributed among his people, after the assault on the _Eclipse_, and so escaped the ravages of a landing party. “The women,” said Po Adam, “cry, and the men, too, when the big ships come again.” The whole town had been bombarded for the misdeed of one man. The women and children had to face the cannon as well as the men. It was necessary, very likely, to teach the natives to respect the lives and property under the American flag. But there was no guarantee that the wily Yankee skipper would deal honestly with the natives. And there was no count of the women and children killed and mangled when the cannon were used to enforce the American demand. Treaties were afterward made with a number of the chiefs who pledged themselves to protect Americans from all robbery and assault. There is little doubt that the naval officers regarded it as a very sorry piece of duty that had to be attended to.