I frequently held communications with the chiefs, on which occasions I was always surrounded by the entire population, and had many opportunities of witnessing the docility of these islanders, and how open they are to conviction. They would willingly place themselves under the control of a mild government, and with such an advantage I feel convinced that they would even lay aside their barbarous customs, and adopt a more quiet, orderly and industrious mode of life. If traders now and then suffer wrong at their hands, I believe that, in most cases, their own conduct has been the cause of it; since it has often come under my notice that the Amboynese and Banda traders frequently take advantage of their superior knowledge and experience, to lord it over the islanders, and cheat them of their goods, the simplicity of the latter rendering them an easy prey. If it were known how often strangers leave them without fulfilling their commercial engagements, the artless natives would readily be excused for occasionally taking a wild justice for their wrongs, and viewing all strangers with suspicion. When among the islands which we visited during the previous part of the voyage, I had heard that an English vessel had been cut off by the natives of Baba, and it was not without the greatest difficulty that I succeeded in gaining some of the particulars concerning it from a few of the natives. It appeared that some months previous to my visit, an English trading brig, manned with ten European seamen, which had been bartering muskets and ammunition for tortoise-shell and cattle among the islands to the eastward of Timor, anchored off Aluta, the capital of the tribe inhabiting the east side of Baba, and the commander, supposing the people to be as trustworthy as those of the other islands, sent half his crew ashore in the boat to obtain water, at a time when a large number of natives were on board the brig carrying on a trade. While the boat was away, the natives, for some unknown reason, attacked the commander and the four remaining seamen, and, although armed only with their knives, succeeded in killing them, which fate also befel the boat's crew on their return on board. The brig was then run on shore, plundered, and burnt. The greater part of her cargo, consisting of arms, tortoise-shell and cattle, together with her sails and rigging, which had been divided among the captors, were still in their possession.[22] A trading prahu from Banda, which afterwards visited Aluta, was also cut off by the natives, and all her crew murdered with the exception of two individuals, one of whom was subsequently taken away by another trading prahu, while the other still remained on the island, having married the daughter of one of the chiefs; from which there is reason for supposing that he was accessary to the deed.