The dispatch of the Minto to Pedir on 20 January 1819 was a unilateral act by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles during the convoluted preliminaries to the Raffles–Coombs Acheh Commission. It was carried out by Lieutenant Criddle commanding the Honourable Company’s ship Minto, and forms one of the irregular proceedings for which Raffles was later censured by the Bengal government.
The immediate background was Raffles’ decision, after receiving Major Farquhar’s letter of 19 January, to set the Acheh mission aside and proceed instead on his celebrated detour to the Karimon Islands — a project that culminated in the founding of Singapore. On board ship, after the surprise departure from Penang, it suddenly occurred to him (“It occurred to me for the first time”) that the Achehnese chiefs and the pretender Syf were to have been informed of the commission’s approach, and that Sultan Jauhar Alum at Pedir would now be left without notice. Raffles feared that the Dutch might “slaan hun slag bij sultan Djohor” — steal a march on the British with the sultan at Pedir — and to forestall this he ordered Criddle, while still in Penang harbour, to make at once for Pedir.
Criddle, who apparently had no reason to decline the order, sailed to Pedir and there, in accordance with his instructions, communicated to Sultan Jauhar Alum that the commission would appear within three or four weeks and that the sultan could rely on the justice and good intentions of the British government. The sultan replied with characteristic coolness that the Dutch had made him no overture whatsoever, but promised that he would in due course enter into negotiations with them as well. Raffles thus obtained, through Criddle, what the joint commission had not yet secured: a prior contact with the sultan at Pedir.
Governor Bannerman and Captain Coombs both protested the “eigenmachtige wegzending van de Minto”. In his defence, addressed to O. F. Metcalfe, secretary to the government at Fort William, and dated Fort Marlborough, 30 September 1819, Raffles argued that the suddenness of his departure had precluded any prior communication with Coombs. The Calcutta government was not persuaded. Its report of 7 October 1820 to London observed that the proceeding was “contrary to the spirit of our instructions” and “obviously improper without previous communication with his colleague”, adding that the circumstances had never been sufficiently explained and indicated “an undue bias towards the interests of Jowhar ool Aulum”. The dispatch of the Minto was, in retrospect, the first clear sign that Raffles intended to push Jauhar Alum’s claims against those of Syf regardless of his colleague’s opinion — a policy that led directly to the Treaty of Pedir of 22 April 1819.
See Also
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Lieutenant Criddle
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Captain Coombs
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- O. F. Metcalfe
- Raffles’ detour to Karimon Islands
- Founding of Singapore
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Treaty of Pedir (1819)
- Pedir
- Penang
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.