Captain Ralfe (referred to in the documents both as “captain” and “lieutenant”) was the officer who commanded the artillery detachment which Raffles brought with him from Bengal in early 1819 for the use of the Acheh commission. The disposition of this detachment became one of the secondary points of contention between Raffles and Colonel Bannerman at Penang, and is recorded by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) in his fifth appendix.
The Artillery Detachment at Penang
Van der Kemp prints, in Raffles’s defence addressed to O. F. Metcalfe on 30 September 1819, the passage in which Raffles described the dispute. “The second circumstance”, Raffles wrote, “relates to the difference of opinion which arose with regard to the destination of the artillery-detachment which accompanied me from Bengal; Colonel Bannerman [intended it] for the service of [Penang]”. Raffles, on the other hand, contended that the detachment was intended for the use of the Acheh commission. When Bannerman demanded that Raffles produce written authority for his claim, Raffles replied “that I had none, but that I concluded it was in the orders that Lieutenant Ralfe had been commanded [to receive], and that of course the detachment must be in possession of them”.
Bannerman then observed “that Lieutenant Ralfe had no such orders; that point, he added, had been ascertained. In this situation I explained to [Colonel Bannerman]” — that is, Raffles set out the verbal understanding upon which the artillery had been dispatched. The episode is one of several illustrative of the friction between Raffles and Bannerman in the early days of the commission, friction which the Calcutta government afterwards attributed partly to Bannerman’s “hasty temper” and partly to Raffles’s want of clear written instructions.
Significance
The Ralfe detachment is significant less for its own sake than as an instance of the general ambiguity which surrounded the Acheh commission’s military support. The Penang government, as Van der Kemp notes elsewhere, had wanted a force of the 20th regiment native infantry to follow the mission, “which however was very properly protested against by the Mission”; ships had nevertheless been taken up by the Government of Prince of Wales Island at considerable expense for that purpose. The Ralfe artillery detachment represented Raffles’s own small military contribution from Bengal, and the dispute over its destination indicates how completely the two governments — Bencoolen and Penang — had divergent views on the appropriate level of force to be employed at Acheh.
Van der Kemp gives no further particulars of Ralfe’s biography or subsequent career. His historical importance in the Acheh question lies solely in the part which the artillery detachment under his command played in the running quarrel between Raffles and Bannerman during the early weeks of 1819.
See Also
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- O. F. Metcalfe
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Penang
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 Ralfe (referred to in the documents both as “captain” and “lieutenant”) was the officer who commanded the artillery detachment which Raffles brought with him from Bengal in early 1819 for the use of the Acheh commission. The disposition of this detachment became one of the secondary points of contention between Raffles and Colonel Bannerman at Penang, and is recorded by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) in his fifth appendix.
The Artillery Detachment at Penang
Van der Kemp prints, in Raffles’s defence addressed to O. F. Metcalfe on 30 September 1819, the passage in which Raffles described the dispute. “The second circumstance”, Raffles wrote, “relates to the difference of opinion which arose with regard to the destination of the artillery-detachment which accompanied me from Bengal; Colonel Bannerman [intended it] for the service of [Penang]”. Raffles, on the other hand, contended that the detachment was intended for the use of the Acheh commission. When Bannerman demanded that Raffles produce written authority for his claim, Raffles replied “that I had none, but that I concluded it was in the orders that Lieutenant Ralfe had been commanded [to receive], and that of course the detachment must be in possession of them”.
Bannerman then observed “that Lieutenant Ralfe had no such orders; that point, he added, had been ascertained. In this situation I explained to [Colonel Bannerman]” — that is, Raffles set out the verbal understanding upon which the artillery had been dispatched. The episode is one of several illustrative of the friction between Raffles and Bannerman in the early days of the commission, friction which the Calcutta government afterwards attributed partly to Bannerman’s “hasty temper” and partly to Raffles’s want of clear written instructions.
Significance
The Ralfe detachment is significant less for its own sake than as an instance of the general ambiguity which surrounded the Acheh commission’s military support. The Penang government, as Van der Kemp notes elsewhere, had wanted a force of the 20th regiment native infantry to follow the mission, “which however was very properly protested against by the Mission”; ships had nevertheless been taken up by the Government of Prince of Wales Island at considerable expense for that purpose. The Ralfe artillery detachment represented Raffles’s own small military contribution from Bengal, and the dispute over its destination indicates how completely the two governments — Bencoolen and Penang — had divergent views on the appropriate level of force to be employed at Acheh.
Van der Kemp gives no further particulars of Ralfe’s biography or subsequent career. His historical importance in the Acheh question lies solely in the part which the artillery detachment under his command played in the running quarrel between Raffles and Bannerman during the early weeks of 1819.
See Also
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- O. F. Metcalfe
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Penang
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.