up political relations, notwithstanding the great necessity felt by American merchants for better protection and freer commerce. But the trade with the Pacific countries had become so important and profitable, and was in such an unprotected condition, that the government found itself impelled to the adoption of measures for the improvement of its commercial relations with these countries.
The exposed condition of this commerce attracted general attention because of the murder of the crew and the plundering of the ship Friendship, of Salem, Mass., in 1831, by the natives of Sumatra. The melancholy event was twice referred to by President Jackson in messages to Congress, and was the immediate cause of the dispatch of a special agent by the government, with two naval vessels, "for the purpose of examining, in the Indian Ocean, the means of extending the commerce of the United States by commercial arrangements with the Powers whose dominions border on these seas."[1] Edmund Roberts, of New Hampshire, a large ship-owner, who had spent much time abroad engaged in mercantile pursuits, and who had visited the Eastern countries and become acquainted with the condition of affairs in that distant region, had, through Senator Woodbury, of his State, previously urged upon the government the propriety and timeliness of measures for the enlargement and better protection of American commerce in the Pacific. The President was stirred to action by the unfortunate disaster to the
- ↑ 2 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, by J. D. Richardson, Washington, 1896, pp. 551, 596; Treaties of the U. S., 1887, p. 1380.
