Actuated by these considerations, I willingly accepted the offer made to our junior officers to enter the Colonial Navy, and receive the command of a gun-boat armed with an 18-pounder, two 8-pounders, some swivels, and manned with thirty men, chiefly Javanese, the same rank being given me with that I held in the Royal Navy. I was now sent to the east coast of Banka, for the purpose of keeping the pirates in check, and of keeping open the communication with the tin mines. At first I was accompanied by the schooner _Zeemeeuw_, Lieutenant Alewyn, but this vessel was soon ordered on another station, and I remained here eight months, in daily contact with the pirates, without the assistance of other Europeans; this period forming by no means the most agreeable portion of my stay in India. I had often serious engagements with the famed Radin Allin, who, however, never was courageous enough to board the gun-boat. Had he done so, our only resource would have been to blow up our vessel, to prevent her falling into the hands of the pirates, as the great superiority of their force would have rendered it impossible to withstand them. This Radin Allin displayed great intrepidity on several occasions. Once, while I was conveying some vessels to Kaba, he took advantage of my absence to attack and carry the fort of Batu-Rusa, on the Marawang river. On my return I found him still in the river with a large number of prahus, where I blockaded him until the month of September 1820, when I at length received assistance from Minto, at a period when such relief had become of the greatest necessity, as I had often thought that my last hour had arrived. Of my crew, only a few natives remained, the others having either been killed or sent to the hospital. During these hazardous expeditions I had frequent opportunities of witnessing the fidelity of the Javanese seamen in the hour of danger. Their behaviour and disposition prepossessed me very much in favour of the nation to which they belonged, and during my subsequent voyaging in India, where I considerably increased my acquaintance with them, I never had occasion to alter the favourable opinion I had formed. When a Javanese is treated with consideration, and is not subjected to tyrannical treatment, he is as much to be trusted as an European, and submits far more readily to control.