The London dispatch of 4 August 1824 — referred to by P. H. Van der Kemp as the Londensche depêche of 4 August 1824 — was the despatch by which the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London transmitted the ratified Anglo-Dutch treaty of 17 March 1824 to the Governor-General of Bengal in Council at Calcutta, with explanatory observations on the principal points requiring attention in India. The Acheh paragraphs — paragraphs 3 and 4 of the dispatch — informed the Bengal government that the 1819 Acheh convention was to be regarded as a dead letter, and authorised the Governor-General to enter into a mere commercial arrangement with the sultan of Acheh in its place, should he think it desirable. The dispatch is printed by Van der Kemp as Appendix 9 to his study.
Background
The treaty of 17 March 1824 had been signed at London after the sudden disclosure of the 1819 Acheh convention by the British plenipotentiaries. The Dutch counter-nota annexed to the treaty had declared that the Netherlands would “regulate its relations with Acheh in such a manner that this State, without losing anything of its independence, should offer to navigators and traders that permanent safety, which could not exist except through the moderate exercise of European influence.” The British nota, in turn, had expressed the hope that the Dutch government would take measures to secure those provisions of the 1819 convention that were “favourable to the general interests of Europeans established in the Eastern seas.”
After ratification, the treaty, with its annexed notas, was transmitted to the Indian government for execution. The Court of Directors in London took the occasion to set out its views on the principal points requiring attention, including the Acheh question.
The Acheh paragraphs
The Acheh paragraphs of the dispatch — paragraphs 3 and 4, printed by Van der Kemp as Appendix 9 — read in substance as follows:
“We have never approved of an intimate connection with that State; and we apprehend that, even if our relations with it had not been affected by the engagements which have been contracted with the Dutch, it would have been necessary to revise the treaty concluded with Djohor Allum as king of Acheen in 1819. That chief, so far as we can collect from your correspondence, not having possessed an established authority in the country which he assumed to represent, has never been in a situation to maintain the relations into which he entered; while that part of the treaty, the execution of which depended upon the British, appears to have been punctually fulfilled. The treaty therefore might even now be fairly considered as a dead letter. We are, however, disposed to conduct ourselves with liberality towards this chief, and we therefore authorise you in negotiating with him (should he now exercise the powers of government) for the annulment or modification of the treaty of 1819, to offer him a pecuniary compensation.”
The fourth paragraph continued:
“You will observe that the Netherlands Plenipotentiaries, in their Note, contemplate the existence of the king of Acheen in a state of independence after England shall have withdrawn herself from Sumatra; and on comparing both notes, that you are at liberty to enter into a mere commercial arrangement with him, if you should think it desirable.”
The dispatch thus formally declared the 1819 convention a dead letter, attributed the failure to Sultan Djohor Allum’s want of authority in Acheh, and authorised the Bengal government to negotiate its annulment or modification upon a pecuniary compensation. Crucially, the dispatch also authorised the Bengal government to enter into a “mere commercial arrangement” with the sultan — a provision that Van der Kemp treats as going beyond what the Dutch counter-nota had warranted.
Significance
Van der Kemp stresses two consequences of the London dispatch of 4 August 1824. First, it transformed the Dutch declaration of Acheh’s independence — which had been an undertaking by the Netherlands government to the British — into an authorisation for the British Indian government to enter into commercial negotiations with Acheh. “The English subordinates in India”, Van der Kemp remarks, “found our Sumatra supremacy so well established that they judged that the provision, according to which the Indian government might open no new office without permission from Europe, also applied to the island [of Sumatra], the cession of which to the Netherlands had been the principal object of the treaty.” Article 6 of the treaty, which the Dutch had desired in order to prevent fresh Singapore scandals, was thus turned against the Dutch themselves.
Second, the dispatch initiated the train of correspondence that would lead to the Bengal inquiry to Penang of 28 January 1825, in which the Governor-General in Council sought the advice of the government of Penang on the transformation of the 1819 convention into a pure commercial arrangement. Governor Fullerton’s minute of 21 March 1825 and his Pinang Nota of 1825 would be the Penang government’s replies, in which the strategic implications of the Acheh reservation were for the first time fully drawn out. The London dispatch of 4 August 1824 is thus the connecting link between the negotiations at London in February–March 1824 and the British-Indian strategic debate on Sumatra of 1825–1828.
See Also
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Treaty of Pedir (1819)
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Dead letter
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Raising of the Acheh treaty in London negotiations
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 24 February 1824
- Bengal inquiry to Penang
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh (21 March 1825)
- Pinang Nota (1825)
- Robert Fullerton
- Lord Moira
- Calcutta
- Penang
- Acheh
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.