The Lucas mission to Telok Semawé of February 1821 was an armed Dutch diplomatic expedition dispatched to the Achehnese coast by the Netherlands Indies government in order to demand from the pretender Saif ul-Alum (Syf) the surrender of the Wilhelmina’s mutineers and the restitution of the money plundered from the schooner in the mutiny of July–August 1819. Commanded by Colonel E. Lucas in the war-brig Irene, the mission ended in complete failure and produced a sharp Anglo-Dutch “paper war” that Van der Kemp treats as one of the principal episodes in the diplomatic prelude to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.
Background
The murder of Lieutenant Marx Bouwens and two of his crew in July–August 1819, and the plunder of the Wilhelmina’s specie and stores by her Malay crew, had been followed by the escape of the mutineers to Telok Semawé, then the residence of Syf. Syf had plundered them in turn, set them to forced labour, and disposed of the proceeds at his pleasure. The British agent at Acheh, Sartorius, had succeeded in securing eleven of the mutineers for transmission to Batavia, but the examination of these men gave the Dutch government an unfavourable impression of Syf’s good faith. On orders from Batavia, Timmerman Thyssen, the Dutch governor of Malacca, wrote on 20 January 1821 — a date Van der Kemp notes as “vrij oud” — to the government of Penang, demanding the stolen money and the surrender of nineteen named criminals. The letter was delivered by Lucas in person.
The Dutch, who had heard by report that Britain had acquired sovereignty over Acheh, wished to invoke the British interposition before resorting to force, “to the end of avoiding all possible collision with the vassals of an English government, or which could in any way interfere with the harmony and the good intelligence which exists between the Government of Prince of Wales Island and that of Malacca”.
The mission
Governor Bannerman having died on 8 August 1819, the governorship of Penang had devolved upon W. E. Phillips. Phillips considered the matter too old for fresh inquiry, but he summoned Syf to Penang in February 1821. The ex-sultan told his story — that he could not restrain his people, that the 800 dollars he had taken had been spent on rewards and on the maintenance of the prisoners, and that a gold watch in question was in the possession of one of his servants. Phillips, in council, was unimpressed by the complaints: in many parts of civilised Europe, he observed, shore-dwellers would have done the same; and in any case Syf, having been in the exercise of sovereign authority at Telok Semawé at the time of the mutineers’ arrival, “can be responsible to no one for whatever disposition he might have made of effects coming to his territories under such circumstances”. The Penang government accordingly refused to allow Lucas to proceed in person to Telok Semawé. It observed that Britain had entered into “a friendly and defensive alliance” with the sultan of Acheh, and that Dutch ships of war should not appear on the coast: “the present circumstances of our ally … bind us to make every exertion to dissuade Dutch vessels of war from proceeding to the coast of Acheen”.
Lucas, dissatisfied with Syf’s account, requested on 9 February 1821 a fresh examination — the more so because a woman from Bouwens’ ship was still available to give evidence. The governor’s secretary, W. A. Clubley, answered for the Penang council on 12 February 1821 that the matter was closed: Syf’s statement had been given voluntarily, no tribunal existed on the island competent to judge a sovereign in respect of acts done within his own territory, and a further hearing was “inexpedient”. The woman’s evidence, which was nonetheless taken down and forwarded, led to nothing. Lucas replied the same day acknowledging “great obligations” for the trouble taken, and the Irene returned to Malacca “onverrichter zake” — without accomplishing her errand.
Significance
The Lucas mission is significant chiefly as a demonstration of the impasse into which Anglo-Dutch relations on the Sumatran coast had fallen by 1821. The Dutch could not act in Achehnese waters without British permission; the British, bound by treaty to Sultan Jauhar Alum and unwilling to acknowledge Dutch rights of intervention, refused to permit action and equally refused to take effective action themselves. Syf, protected by the British at Penang, was beyond Dutch reach. Van der Kemp observes that the “Papieroorlog” between the two governments over the Wilhelmina affair belongs to the same series of inconclusive exchanges as the broader controversy over Sumatra supremacy — a controversy that would only be resolved, after a fashion, by the Treaty of London of 17 March 1824, which divided the two spheres and ceded Sumatra to the Netherlands.
See Also
- Colonel E. Lucas
- Sultan Saif ul-Alum
- Timmerman Thyssen
- W. E. Phillips
- W. A. Clubley
- Sartorius
- Lieutenant Marx Bouwens
- Wilhelmina mutiny and murder of Bouwens
- Syf’s pension at Penang
- Syf’s flight to Calcutta
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Death of Bannerman
- Telok Semawé
- Penang
- Malacca
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.