The celebrated bay of Tappanuli stretches into the heart of the Batta country, and its shores are everywhere inhabited by that people, who barter the produce of their land for the articles they stand in need of from abroad, but do not themselves make voyages by sea.  Navigators assert that the natural advantages of this bay are scarcely surpassed in any other part of the globe; that all the navies of the world might ride there with perfect security in every weather; and that such is the complication of anchoring-places within each other that a large ship could be so hid in them as not to be found without a tedious search.  At the island of Punchong kechil, on which our settlement stands, it is a common practice to moor the vessels by a hawser to a tree on shore.  Timber for masts and yards is to be procured in the various creeks with great facility.  Not being favourably situated with respect to the general track of outward and homeward-bound shipping, and its distance from the principal seat of our important Indian concerns being considerable, it has not hitherto been much used for any great naval purposes; but at the same time our government should be aware of the danger that might arise from suffering any other maritime power to get footing in a place of this description.  The natives are in general inoffensive, and have given little disturbance to our establishments; but parties of Achinese traders (without the concurrence or knowledge, as there is reason to believe, of their own government), jealous of our commercial influence, long strove to drive us from the bay by force of arms, and we were under the necessity of carrying on a petty warfare for many years in order to secure our tranquillity.  In the year 1760 Tappanuli was taken by a squadron of French ships under the command of the Comte d’Estaing; and in October 1809, being nearly defenceless, it was again taken by the Creole French frigate, Captain Ripaud, joined afterwards by the Venus and La Manche; under the orders of Commodore Hamelin.  By the terms of the surrender private property was to be secured, but in a few days, after the most friendly assurances had been given to the acting resident, with whom the French officers were living, this engagement was violated under the ill-founded pretence that some gold had been secreted, and everything belonging to the English gentlemen and ladies, as well as to the native settlers, was plundered or destroyed by fire, with circumstances of atrocity and brutality that would have disgraced savages.  The garden-house of the chief (Mr. Prince, who happened to be then absent from Tappanuli) at Batu-buru on the main was likewise burned, together with his horses, and his cattle were shot at and maimed.  Even the books of accounts, containing the statement of outstanding debts due to the trading-concern of the place were, in spite of every entreaty, maliciously destroyed or carried off, by which an irreparable loss, from which the enemy could not derive a benefit, is sustained by the unfortunate sufferers.  It cannot be supposed that the government of a great and proud empire can give its sanction to this disgraceful mode of carrying on war.