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270 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. '
increase in piracy that took place directly after the cruisers had
quitted the station, and the columns of the Indian papers of
that day are filled with accounts of the depredations and atroci-
ties committed by the piratical proas which swarmed around the
coasts of Borneo, Java, and Celebes, the Dutch ships of war
displaying a surprising lack of energy and enterprise in check-
ing the growing evil.
Perhaps the last services one or two of the cruisers of the
Bombay Marine were enabled to render on this station, were
calculated to be of a more pleasing character in the retrospect,
than any war service could be ; we refer to those connected
with the saving of life, which the seaman, in the evening of
life, when " fighting his battles o'er again," and recounting to
his chiklren the oft told tale of battle, fire, and wreck, will
recall with a proud consciousness that not all his energies were
expended in depriving as many of his country's enemies of
life, as the opportunities at his disposal enabled him to
compass.
In (September, 1816, when the British troops were being
withdrawn from Java, four hundred men of the 78th High-
landers embarked for Calcutta on board the ' Princess Charlotte
transport, but the ship, running upon a sunken rock, the day
after her departure, w'as, with great difficulty, navigated back
to Batavia Roads. Here the troops were transferred to the
' Francis and Charlotte,' a vessel of 700 tons, which
sailed for Calcutta on the 29th of September. On the 5th of
November, the ship with the ill-fated Highlanders on board, ran
on one of the sunken reefs surrounding the island of Preparis,
which lay about twelve miles on the larboard quarter. The
boats could only hold one-fifth of the souls, which, including
soldiers, women, children, and the crew, numbered upwards of
five hundred and forty. A great portion of these were landed
on the island, and a ship, the ' Prince Blucher,' bearing in
sight, took on board the remainder, who had been exposed on
a rock near the wreck for five days ; owing to the tempestuous
weather that now set in, the captain of the 'Prince Blucher'
deemed it prudent to proceed to Calcutta, where he arrived in
nine days. Lord Hastings, the Governor-General, immediately
despatched two of the Company's cruisers to proceed to the
island and bring ofT the remainder of the shipwrecked people,
amounting to one hundred and fifty men, who were found on
the thirty-sixth day after the wreck, in a state of deplorable
weakness. They had been subsisting on shell-fish, but latterly,
none had been procurable, and they were in too exhausted a
condition to search for them at low-water. Several of them
died after being taken on board the cruisers, and the sudden
change from total privation to plenty, proved fatal to many
more.