him of his distresses, and that it was his intention to heave the Hobart down, in hopes that he should still be able to patch her up sufficiently for the voyage.
Not having heard of him for a very considerable period, Vice-Admiral Rainier had already expressed great anxiety for his safety; and on the receipt of the above despatch, he immediately sent Captain Evans directions to sell the Hobart, if he found, on examination of her bottom, that she was unfit to proceed to sea, under the escort of another vessel appropriated to that service.
The laborious task of heaving the ship down, was performed by her crew alone, according to Captain Evans’s expressed intentions; and although it was scarcely prudent to commit himself in such a defective vessel, yet, finding that government would sustain a very great loss by the sale of her hull, stores, &c., at Prince of Wales’s island, he resolved to sail from thence in company with the Victor sloop, which vessel had been sent to escort him across the bay.
Previous to his final departure from that island. Captain Evans discovered that the Americans were carrying on a smuggling trade, by loading at Madras or Bengal, clearing out for America, and, instead of proceeding thither, disposing of their cargoes, under various fraudulent pretexts, at Pulo Penang, a settlement then in its infancy. Ever anxious to maintain the interests of his country. Captain Evans immediately resolved to put a stop to this illegal traffic, and he accordingly seized a brig named the Roebuck, commanded by Mr. James Bishop, who had arrived there on the 8th Sept. 1802, broke bulk (without first obtaining permission) on the 9th, sold part of his cargo for 6820 dollars on the 11th and 12th, and completed the clandestine landing of the whole on the 19th of the same month; thereby infringing the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, concluded between Great Britain and the United States, in 1783. The condemnation of the Roebuck, after much litigation, and consequent anxiety on the part of Captain Evans, led to the formation of a government at Prince of Wales’s Island, similar to those of Madras and Bombay.
