During the whole of the year 1818, we were employed in cruizing among the Molucca Islands, for the prevention of piracy and the contraband trade, especially the illegal sale of gunpowder to the natives in a state of insurrection. The pirates sometimes behave with great boldness, deriving confidence from the rapidity with which their light vessels can escape into the numerous creeks; the oars which they use when the wind is contrary giving them great advantages in point of swiftness over our cruizers. A couple of steam-boats, which would be able to follow them into their lurking places, would be very efficacious in ridding us of these plagues. On the 12th of January 1819, the then Governor of the Moluccas, General De Kock, with his family, embarked on board the _Venus_ for the purpose of being conveyed to Java. We sailed on the following day, and did not reach Batavia until the 4th of May following. During this tedious passage, a beautiful collection of the birds of the Moluccas, the property of the General, died from want of food. Salt meat and biscuit formed our sole diet during the greater part of the voyage, and it is surprising that with such provisions, we did not have considerable sickness on board. We now proceeded to Sourabaya, being accompanied by Captain Stout, of the Colonial Marine, with several light vessels. When off the Taggal Mountain we encountered some piratical vessels, and having been several times employed with native seamen, speaking their language with tolerable fluency, I was placed in charge of a Korra-korra, and sent in chase. Captain Stout met with a sad accident on this occasion. A gun that had been fired by the Captain himself, perhaps from its being overloaded, recoiled so much that it burst through the bulwarks on the opposite side of the vessel and fell overboard, striking the Captain violently on the breast during its passage, and causing the almost immediate death of this brave seaman. In the latter part of the year 1819, the _Venus_ was placed in readiness to return to the mother country. Our joyful expectations, however, were soon disappointed, for the disturbances which had broken out at Palembang, rendered it necessary that the corvette should proceed there, to be in readiness to act against the Sultan Mohammed Badr-el-Din; and on the 4th of December we arrived in the roads of Minto, on the island of Banka, to await the time when our services would be required. All prospects of a speedy return home were thus destroyed, but I consoled myself with the consideration that duty required the sacrifice, and that I could serve my country in these remote regions as well as in the Netherlands. Our foreign possessions, indeed, though far distant, are still provinces of the fatherland.