As she left Port Cockburn her Commander was
warned to avoid an island called Baba, one of the Serwatti Islands, which
was infested with pirates who were very daring and very cruel. It is
supposed that the warning was unheeded, for there the little vessel met
her end.
The schooner Stedcombe, Captain Burns (or Barnes), from England, arrived
at Melville Island when anxiety was being felt there regarding the Lady
Nelson's fate. After her stores were landed, as scurvy was increasing
among the colonists, Captain Barlow chartered the vessel on behalf of the
Government and despatched her to Timor for buffaloes: she was also
instructed to search for the missing Lady Nelson. Her captain remained at
the settlement, and the chief mate took charge of the schooner. The
Stedcombe never returned, and later it was learned that she too had been
captured by pirates, off Timor Laut, about sixty miles eastward of Baba,
where the Lady Nelson had been taken.
The Serwatti Islands form a chain which stretches from the east end of
Timor as far as Baba. When Lieutenant Kolff of the Dutch Navy visited
Baba in July 1825 the inhabitants were shy and deserted the village of
Tepa on his landing. He was convinced that a crime had been committed,
and learned that "some months previously an English brig manned by about
a dozen Europeans had anchored off Alata on the south-east coast and had
engaged in barter with the natives who were on board in great numbers,
and who taking the opportunity of 5 men being on shore...attacked and
killed the people on the brig as well as those in the boat when they
returned." Earl, who translated Kolff's journal, says that "the natives
received not the slightest reproof from Lieutenant Kolff for this
outrage."
Fourteen years afterwards, when Captain Gordon Bremer was acting as
commandant at Port Essington,* (* Melville Island was abandoned in 1829
for Port Essington.) Captain Thomas Watson arrived there in the schooner
Essington, bearing the news that Mr. Volshawn, master of a small trading
vessel flying the Dutch flag, had seen an English sailor on the island of
Timor Laut when he visited it in February of the previous year.* (*
Captain Watson's journal is preserved at the Admiralty.) The Englishman
was kept captive at a native village on the south-eastern side of the
island, and stated that he had belonged to the Stedcombe. Mr. Volshawn
also declared that he had seen there articles which had been taken from
the Stedcombe.
Captain Watson decided to try and rescue his countryman, and on March
31st, 1839, when off Timor Laut he stood in for the island. The plan he
proposed to adopt in order to carry out the rescue was to entice a chief
or Orang Kaire on board and hold him as a hostage until the English
sailor was produced.
