Captain Glass was a British sea-captain, mentioned in the letter of the Sultan of Acheh to Warren Hastings of 7 November 1786 as one of three Europeans — together with Captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird — “who are acquainted with my affairs and with my intention towards you.” He is named once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in Appendix 1.
The 1786 letter
After the murder of Captain Hobbs at Tringano, the Sultan had been unable to find anyone whom he could entrust with his reply to Hastings. He therefore proposed that Hastings himself should seek information from the three Europeans — Captain Glass, Captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird — who had personal knowledge of the Achehnese court and of the Sultan’s intentions. The relevant passage runs: “You will ask captain Glass, captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird, who are acquainted with my affairs and with my intention towards you.”
Significance
The three names are interesting to Van der Kemp chiefly as evidence that, before the formal British approach through Captain Steven, the Achehnese court had had substantive dealings with several English traders and captains — enough for the Sultan to identify them, individually, as men who could speak to his purposes. The fragmentary reference is the only mention of Captain Glass in the article; nothing further is recorded of his person, his ship, or the nature of his “acquaintance” with Acheh.
Van der Kemp prints the 1786 letter as the first of his twelve appendices because it is the earliest documentary evidence of an Achehnese desire for “lasting friendship with the English” — a phrase that foreshadows the language of the Treaty of Pedir of 1819 and the broader Acheh treaty of 1819.
See Also
- Warren Hastings
- Sultan Alauddin Muhammad Shah Jauhar
- Captain Steven
- Captain Hobbs
- Captain Thomas
- John Bird
- Sultan of Acheh’s letter to Warren Hastings
- Tringano
- 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.
Captain Glass was a British sea-captain, mentioned in the letter of the Sultan of Acheh to Warren Hastings of 7 November 1786 as one of three Europeans — together with Captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird — “who are acquainted with my affairs and with my intention towards you.” He is named once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in Appendix 1.
The 1786 letter
After the murder of Captain Hobbs at Tringano, the Sultan had been unable to find anyone whom he could entrust with his reply to Hastings. He therefore proposed that Hastings himself should seek information from the three Europeans — Captain Glass, Captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird — who had personal knowledge of the Achehnese court and of the Sultan’s intentions. The relevant passage runs: “You will ask captain Glass, captain Thomas and Mr. John Bird, who are acquainted with my affairs and with my intention towards you.”
Significance
The three names are interesting to Van der Kemp chiefly as evidence that, before the formal British approach through Captain Steven, the Achehnese court had had substantive dealings with several English traders and captains — enough for the Sultan to identify them, individually, as men who could speak to his purposes. The fragmentary reference is the only mention of Captain Glass in the article; nothing further is recorded of his person, his ship, or the nature of his “acquaintance” with Acheh.
Van der Kemp prints the 1786 letter as the first of his twelve appendices because it is the earliest documentary evidence of an Achehnese desire for “lasting friendship with the English” — a phrase that foreshadows the language of the Treaty of Pedir of 1819 and the broader Acheh treaty of 1819.
See Also
- Warren Hastings
- Sultan Alauddin Muhammad Shah Jauhar
- Captain Steven
- Captain Hobbs
- Captain Thomas
- John Bird
- Sultan of Acheh’s letter to Warren Hastings
- Tringano
- 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.