Fullerton’s circular to nine Siak chiefs of 21 May 1828 is the collective letter by which Governor Robert Fullerton of Penang, in response to the projected Bellona mission of Commissioner-General Du Bus, invited the principal chiefs of the East Coast of Sumatra to trade with Malacca and warned them against Dutch imposts on British traders passing through their territory. The text of the circular is printed in Appendix 11 of Van der Kemp’s study and forms part of the broader Siak-correspondentie of 1828.
Origin
The immediate occasion of the circular was the news, received by John Prince from Batavia in November 1827 and laid by Fullerton before his council in a minute of 16 March 1828, that the Netherlands government intended to send the frigate Bellona to the East Coast of Sumatra to divert the salt trade from Singapore to Riouw. Fullerton had already, on 7 February 1828, written privately to the Sultan of Siak in the sense afterwards developed in the circular (see Fullerton’s letter to Sultan of Siak (7 February 1828)). The minute of 16 March 1828 announced his intention of addressing to all the chiefs of the East Coast “a letter similar to the one addressed to those of Siak.”
Contents
The circular, dated 21 May 1828, opens with a profession of British concern for the welfare of those living under British authority, and for the prosperity of Malacca, which was “intimately connected with the flourishing state of affairs in the surrounding countries.” Fullerton then invited each chief — addressed in the customary Malay form as “our friend” — to encourage the traders of his country to bring their staples to Malacca, where they should be “free to come and to go without the payment of duties, and without imposition or hindrance.” Should any case arise in which the chief’s traders had just cause to complain, Fullerton promised the utmost attention on the part of the British authorities.
The second and third paragraphs contain the political sting. Fullerton suggested that it would be to the reciprocal advantage of both countries if the chief would interdict individuals from levying heavy imposts upon British traders passing through his territory — complaints of which, the governor observed, had long been made and might perhaps be unknown to the chief himself. He further suggested the advantage of directing that dollars of all denominations, of proper weight and standard, should be current throughout the chief’s countries; many dollars of good stamp and standard weight, he observed, did not appear to be current in the chief’s territory.
Significance
The circular is one of the foundational documents of the British paper war against Dutch supremacy on Sumatra. By offering the East Coast chiefs free trade with Malacca and by protesting against Dutiable exactions on British traders, Fullerton was in effect inviting them to look to the British settlements rather than to Batavia for their commercial relations, and was contesting the Dutch claim — embodied in Article 9 of the Treaty of 1824 — to exclusive political relations with the chiefs of Sumatra. Van der Kemp introduces the circular as part of the “broad Siak-correspondence of the year 1828,” by which, after the Treaty of 1824, the British government at Penang sought to maintain a watchful supervision over the affairs of the Sumatran states and ultimately to deny the Dutch right to the whole island.
See Also
- Robert Fullerton
- Sultan of Siak
- Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast (1827-1828)
- Fullerton’s letter to Sultan of Siak (7 February 1828)
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh
- John Prince
- Du Bus
- John Anderson
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Siak
- Malacca
- Sumatra’s East Coast
- 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.