Captain Smith was a British sea-captain who, in March 1819, brought to schout-bij-nacht Wolterbeek at Batavia an alarming — and, as it proved, false — report of British military movements against the Carrimons and against Acheh itself. He is mentioned once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in Appendix 4, which reproduces the private letter of Timmerman Thyssen to Wolterbeek dated 16 March 1819.
The Thyssen letter of 16 March 1819
Thyssen, then on station in the neighbourhood of Riouw and Lingga, had received intelligence via the heer Carnegy — who was actively making enquiries at Penang on Thyssen’s behalf — to the effect that two ships with three hundred troops had sailed from Penang, destined for the Carrimons with the intention of taking possession of those islands; and that Raffles was about to depart with another three ships and four hundred men for Adcheen. Thyssen himself did not believe the second part of the report, and predicted that Raffles would soon join his friends at the Carrimons and attempt an attack on Lingga rather than Acheh. He warned Wolterbeek that “these waters swarm with pirates,” that the Tommegong of Singapore had at sea nine well-armed pengojabja, and that he had no frigates or large ships at hand to inspire the native rulers with confidence in Dutch power.
The Smith report and its correction
The postscript to Thyssen’s letter, dated 18 March 1819, records the corrective intelligence brought by Captain Robson:
“P.S. 18 Maart, met vreugde kan ik UHEG. melden, dat de komst van kapitein Robson het geheele nieuws door kapitein Smith meedegebragt heeft geannuleerd, en dat de scheepen, die hij te Carrimon moest aantrefven, scheepen zijn, die van Pulo Penang over Benkoelen derwaarts bestemd waaren, zij moesten te Benkoelen ammunitie en andere benodigdheden inladen, alzo de heer Raffies de Gouverneur Bannerman van niet konde bekomen wat hij wenschte, en dat uit zijn Gouvernement daarin heeft voorzien.”
In other words: Captain Robson’s arrival entirely cancelled the news that Captain Smith had brought. The ships that Smith believed were destined for the Carrimons were, in fact, ships sent from Penang by way of Bencoolen to those islands; they had to load ammunition and other supplies at Bencoolen, because Raffles — unable to obtain from Governor Bannerman at Penang what he wanted — had been supplied from his own government at Bencoolen. The riddle was finally solved when news arrived from Penang that Raffles had given up his intended seizure of the Carrimons and had settled at Singapore instead.
Significance
The Smith-Robson episode is interesting to Van der Kemp as the immediate intelligence background to Raffles’s movements in February-March 1819 — the very weeks in which the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission was concluding the Treaty of Pedir at Pedir. Thyssen, the senior Dutch naval officer on the spot, was receiving contradictory reports from passing captains; the colony’s intelligence picture was, in consequence, of a piece with the political disarray in the Strait of Malacca that followed Raffles’s detour to Karimon and his founding of Singapore. Captain Smith’s report, though false, was sufficiently credible at the time to alarm Thyssen into calling for a powerful Dutch squadron to be sent to the region.
See Also
- Captain Robson
- Schout-bij-nacht Wolterbeek
- Timmerman Thyssen
- Carnegy
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- Karimon Islands
- Lingga
- Riouw
- Penang
- Bencoolen
- Batavia
- Singapore
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Treaty of Pedir
- Raffles’ detour to Karimon Islands
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 Smith was a British sea-captain who, in March 1819, brought to schout-bij-nacht Wolterbeek at Batavia an alarming — and, as it proved, false — report of British military movements against the Carrimons and against Acheh itself. He is mentioned once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in Appendix 4, which reproduces the private letter of Timmerman Thyssen to Wolterbeek dated 16 March 1819.
The Thyssen letter of 16 March 1819
Thyssen, then on station in the neighbourhood of Riouw and Lingga, had received intelligence via the heer Carnegy — who was actively making enquiries at Penang on Thyssen’s behalf — to the effect that two ships with three hundred troops had sailed from Penang, destined for the Carrimons with the intention of taking possession of those islands; and that Raffles was about to depart with another three ships and four hundred men for Adcheen. Thyssen himself did not believe the second part of the report, and predicted that Raffles would soon join his friends at the Carrimons and attempt an attack on Lingga rather than Acheh. He warned Wolterbeek that “these waters swarm with pirates,” that the Tommegong of Singapore had at sea nine well-armed pengojabja, and that he had no frigates or large ships at hand to inspire the native rulers with confidence in Dutch power.
The Smith report and its correction
The postscript to Thyssen’s letter, dated 18 March 1819, records the corrective intelligence brought by Captain Robson:
“P.S. 18 Maart, met vreugde kan ik UHEG. melden, dat de komst van kapitein Robson het geheele nieuws door kapitein Smith meedegebragt heeft geannuleerd, en dat de scheepen, die hij te Carrimon moest aantrefven, scheepen zijn, die van Pulo Penang over Benkoelen derwaarts bestemd waaren, zij moesten te Benkoelen ammunitie en andere benodigdheden inladen, alzo de heer Raffies de Gouverneur Bannerman van niet konde bekomen wat hij wenschte, en dat uit zijn Gouvernement daarin heeft voorzien.”
In other words: Captain Robson’s arrival entirely cancelled the news that Captain Smith had brought. The ships that Smith believed were destined for the Carrimons were, in fact, ships sent from Penang by way of Bencoolen to those islands; they had to load ammunition and other supplies at Bencoolen, because Raffles — unable to obtain from Governor Bannerman at Penang what he wanted — had been supplied from his own government at Bencoolen. The riddle was finally solved when news arrived from Penang that Raffles had given up his intended seizure of the Carrimons and had settled at Singapore instead.
Significance
The Smith-Robson episode is interesting to Van der Kemp as the immediate intelligence background to Raffles’s movements in February-March 1819 — the very weeks in which the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission was concluding the Treaty of Pedir at Pedir. Thyssen, the senior Dutch naval officer on the spot, was receiving contradictory reports from passing captains; the colony’s intelligence picture was, in consequence, of a piece with the political disarray in the Strait of Malacca that followed Raffles’s detour to Karimon and his founding of Singapore. Captain Smith’s report, though false, was sufficiently credible at the time to alarm Thyssen into calling for a powerful Dutch squadron to be sent to the region.
See Also
- Captain Robson
- Schout-bij-nacht Wolterbeek
- Timmerman Thyssen
- Carnegy
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- Karimon Islands
- Lingga
- Riouw
- Penang
- Bencoolen
- Batavia
- Singapore
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Treaty of Pedir
- Raffles’ detour to Karimon Islands
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.