The Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast of 1827–1828 was a projected voyage of the Dutch frigate Bellona to the ports of Sumatra’s East Coast, planned by Commissioner-General Du Bus at Batavia in the closing months of 1827. Its object was to induce the native chiefs of Siak, Kampar, Jambi and neighbouring states to discontinue the purchase of salt from Singapore and to take it instead from Riouw, where it was to be delivered at as low a rate as it could be obtained at the former place. The mission is recorded in Van der Kemp’s article through the reports it drew from John Prince, the former resident of Singapore, and from the minutes and correspondence of Governor Robert Fullerton of Penang which form Appendix 11 of the study.
Background
The salt trade between Singapore and the East Coast of Sumatra had become, by the late 1820s, one of the principal arteries of British commerce in the Straits. Siam salt was imported in large quantities into Singapore — close to 1,000 coyans — and bartered for the coffee, pepper, rattans, wax and gold dust brought down from the Sumatran interior. The Netherlands government at Padang complained that this salt found its way into the interior and affected the sale of the Java salt imported there for a similar purpose; and the Batavia government, smarting under the commercial injury inflicted on its colonial trade by the rise of Singapore, resolved on active counter-measures. The price of Java salt for export was accordingly reduced from 70 to 30 rupees per coyan, on the advice of the councillor of the Indies Van de Graaff. Van der Kemp notes that the reduction, though depicted by the British as a piece of “specific enmity” towards Singapore, in fact formed part of a wider policy to drive Siamese, Makassarese and Bimanese salt from the Buitenbezittingen.
Prince, who happened to be at Batavia at the end of 1827, learned of the Bellona scheme through a private channel and reported it to the Penang government by letter dated Batavia, 29 November 1827. He observed that the appearance of a man-of-war with such a commission might make an impression on the natives unfavourable to the commercial interests of Singapore, inasmuch as they might be intimidated into compliance with the views of the Netherlands government and grant through fear what their interests and better reason would otherwise condemn.
Fullerton’s Response
Governor Fullerton laid Prince’s despatch before his council in a minute of 16 March 1828. He had, he stated, already received information from other sources, and a letter had already been addressed to the chiefs of Siak expressing in general terms British anxiety to continue and promote the growing trade between that state and the British settlements on the Malay side of the Straits. Fullerton had no doubt that the Netherlands government would avail itself, to the full extent of its means, of the exclusive right which it conceived vested in it by the Treaty of 1824 of forming political relations with the chiefs of Sumatra, and that the political influence so established would be rendered entirely subservient to the promotion of Dutch trade and the deterioration of British trade. He concluded by proposing to address to all the chiefs of the East Coast with whom trade was carried on, a circular similar to the one already sent to those of Siak — a proposal executed on 21 May 1828 in Fullerton’s circular to nine Siak chiefs.
Significance
The Bellona mission is significant in Van der Kemp’s narrative as one of the first concrete attempts by the Dutch, after the Java War had begun to absorb their military resources, to translate the paper rights accorded by Article 9 of the Treaty of 1824 into effective commercial and political influence on the East Coast. The British counter-stroke — the Fullerton circular and the earlier letter to the Sultan of Siak of 7 February 1828 — represents in turn the first formal British protest against Dutch activity on Sumatra under the colour of the treaty. The exchange opened the long paper war over Sumatra that was to occupy Anglo-Dutch relations for the next half-century.
See Also
- Robert Fullerton
- John Prince
- Du Bus
- Van de Graaff
- Dutch salt price reduction
- Fullerton’s circular to nine Siak chiefs
- Fullerton’s letter to Sultan of Siak (7 February 1828)
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh
- Java War
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Singapore
- Riouw
- Sumatra’s East Coast
- Siak
- Kampar
- Jambi
- Padang
- Paper war
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.