The King’s authorization of 13 February 1824 — referred to by P. H. Van der Kemp as the Koninklijke machtiging of 13 February 1824 — was the formal authorisation issued by King William I of the Netherlands, on the day after Minister Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824, permitting the Dutch plenipotentiaries in London to sign the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 17 March 1824 with the modifications already discussed, and verbally allowing them to accede to a British request for an Acheh reservation, provided that the existing 1819 Acheh convention really was “nothing more than an engagement for the hospitable reception of British ships and shipwrecked mariners.” The authorisation is printed by Van der Kemp from the Dutch state archives and is described by him as a “hitherto unpublished letter” that “throws much light” on the obscure circumstances under which the fateful Acheh clause was inserted in the treaty of 1824.
Background
The first draft of the 1824 treaty, dated 1 February 1824, had been approved by both parties, but the Dutch plenipotentiaries Fagel and Falck were unable to sign without the King’s authorisation, since articles 10, 11 and 12 of the draft exceeded their instructions. To facilitate the reference, the draft was entrusted to Captain Elout (son of the minister Elout of Finance), who was to carry it personally to The Hague. While the captain was on the point of departure, the British plenipotentiaries Canning and Wynn made their surprise disclosure of the 1819 Acheh convention concluded by Raffles, and asked that “a clause concerning Acheh” be added to the draft. The captain was thereupon verbally instructed to bring this new incident personally to the King’s attention and to seek authorisation for the proposed addition.
The authorisation
On 12 February 1824 Minister Elout submitted his advice on the draft, warning against articles 10, 11 and 12. The King accepted Elout’s advice and on the following day, 13 February, Secretary Reinhold of Foreign Affairs transmitted to Elout the King’s authorisation, which read in substance:
“His Majesty holds the Department of Foreign Affairs authorised, in conformity with Your Excellency’s proposals, to give the further instructions to be conveyed by Captain Elout, and at the same time to inform the Plenipotentiaries that, should they succeed in bringing the matter to an end in the spirit of those instructions, they may sign the treaty forthwith with the British plenipotentiaries. They need not even be withheld by a difficulty, which Captain Elout reports has been raised on the British side, against letting drop an existing treaty with the kingdom of Acheh; but they may give way to that difficulty, if necessary, in case it is true that the treaty has for its object only hospitality and assistance to stranded ships and shipwrecked mariners.”
The same day Reinhold wrote to Elout confirming that everything had been done “in conformity with your advice.” Captain Elout wrote to his father: “Your nota has been given entirely. As to the rest, one has not entered into details, referring to what I had to communicate verbally.”
Significance
The authorisation of 13 February is the document that verbally authorised the Dutch plenipotentiaries in London to consent to an Acheh reservation in the new treaty. Van der Kemp stresses three points. First, the authorisation was verbal; no written instruction on the Acheh point was given, and the King’s letter itself records only the conditional consent (“if it is true that the treaty has for its object only hospitality and assistance to stranded ships and shipwrecked mariners”). Second, the condition was not fulfilled: when Captain Elout returned to London and the 1819 convention was read at the conference of 23 February 1824, it proved to contain article 6 — a clause excluding other Europeans and Americans from residence in Acheh, and obliging the sultan to make no treaty without British consent — that went far beyond mere hospitality. Third, despite the failure of the condition, the Dutch plenipotentiaries consented to the British request and even went beyond it, declaring unconditionally that the Netherlands would respect the independence of Acheh — a gratuitous concession not required by the King’s authorisation.
The authorisation thus stands at the centre of the chain of documents by which the Acheh reservation entered the treaty of 17 March 1824. Van der Kemp notes particularly that Elout’s advice of 12 February was not sought on the Acheh point — “however strange it seems to me, especially since the minister’s own son was the messenger of it” — and that had it been sought, it would presumably have been adverse, on the same grounds that Elout had urged against the Anjer and Tapanoeli articles. The authorisation of 13 February thus illustrates, in Van der Kemp’s reading, the casual manner in which a clause that would paralyse Dutch policy on Sumatra for half a century was smuggled into the treaty without serious examination.
See Also
- Elout
- Captain Elout
- Reinhold
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Hendrik Fagel
- Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824
- First draft of 1824 Anglo-Dutch treaty
- Raising of the Acheh treaty in London negotiations
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 21 February 1824
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 24 February 1824
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Treaty of Pedir (1819)
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
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.