Colonel O’Hallaran was a British colonel who, in mid-1820, made a formal call upon Sultan Djohar at Pedir while a troopship on its way from Penang to Calcutta put in at that port. The episode is recorded by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) from a contemporary Penang newspaper, and is interesting chiefly as an illustration of the conditions prevailing at Sultan Djohar’s court in the year after the conclusion of the Acheh treaty of 1819.
The Visit to Pedir, 1820
Van der Kemp cites a letter from a travelling companion of O’Hallaran, dated Penang, 2 June 1820, which describes the colonel’s arrival at Pedir and his reception by the sultan. The letter, written for the Asiatic Journal, depicts the contrast between O’Hallaran’s Indian conceptions of Asiatic royalty and the actual circumstances in which the Achehnese sultan now found himself. “Col. O’Hallaran whose ideas of a sultan were of course founded on all the great nabobs of Luknow and other great princes of India, landed here in state shortly after arrival; his surprize and embarrassments were rather amusing when he saw a poor creature surrounded only by a set of half-starved chooliahs sitting in a wretched common atap house.” The king, however, behaved with civility and discoursed at length on his future plans.
According to the same correspondent, Sultan Djohar claimed that the late commissioners had by their treaty promised to send him immediately from Penang a lac of rupees and a large supply of military stores, and that his prime minister had gone to receive them. He applied to the officers of the 20th regiment for book-drill, saying that he intended to raise a corps of 600 men and that the moment his military stores arrived he would march “with his great guns in front, all along the sandy beach from Pedir to his good city of Acheen”. The correspondent added that “the handsome service of porcelain which Lord Minto sent him some years ago” had shortly after been hawked about Penang for sale — a piece of evidence suggesting that the sultan’s resources were already dissipated.
Significance
The visit of O’Hallaran is of interest for several reasons. First, it confirms the impression conveyed by the Bengal report of 7 October 1820 that the promises of military and pecuniary aid made in 1819 had never been effectively fulfilled, and that the Sultan remained in a state of dependence at Pedir, far from his “good city” of Acheen. Second, it shows that the gifts which Lord Minto had sent to the Achehnese court some years earlier — probably during his Governor-Generalship of Bengal (1807–1813) — had been squandered by the sultan, a fact which the Asiatic Journal treated as an omen of what would become of any further British aid.
The episode also reveals the deep mismatch between British expectations of oriental monarchy and the realities of Achehnese power. O’Hallaran arrived “in state”, expecting a court comparable to Lucknow; what he found was “a poor creature” in a wretched atap house. Van der Kemp remarks that “we know that the letter-writer was wholly correctly informed; all that he further observed would also prove to be entirely correct”. Raffles’s own organ, the Asiatic Journal, was afterwards incensed that the article had been printed, and described it as “an example of the mischievous uses to which a free press may be perverted in India”.
See Also
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.
Colonel O’Hallaran was a British colonel who, in mid-1820, made a formal call upon Sultan Djohar at Pedir while a troopship on its way from Penang to Calcutta put in at that port. The episode is recorded by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) from a contemporary Penang newspaper, and is interesting chiefly as an illustration of the conditions prevailing at Sultan Djohar’s court in the year after the conclusion of the Acheh treaty of 1819.
The Visit to Pedir, 1820
Van der Kemp cites a letter from a travelling companion of O’Hallaran, dated Penang, 2 June 1820, which describes the colonel’s arrival at Pedir and his reception by the sultan. The letter, written for the Asiatic Journal, depicts the contrast between O’Hallaran’s Indian conceptions of Asiatic royalty and the actual circumstances in which the Achehnese sultan now found himself. “Col. O’Hallaran whose ideas of a sultan were of course founded on all the great nabobs of Luknow and other great princes of India, landed here in state shortly after arrival; his surprize and embarrassments were rather amusing when he saw a poor creature surrounded only by a set of half-starved chooliahs sitting in a wretched common atap house.” The king, however, behaved with civility and discoursed at length on his future plans.
According to the same correspondent, Sultan Djohar claimed that the late commissioners had by their treaty promised to send him immediately from Penang a lac of rupees and a large supply of military stores, and that his prime minister had gone to receive them. He applied to the officers of the 20th regiment for book-drill, saying that he intended to raise a corps of 600 men and that the moment his military stores arrived he would march “with his great guns in front, all along the sandy beach from Pedir to his good city of Acheen”. The correspondent added that “the handsome service of porcelain which Lord Minto sent him some years ago” had shortly after been hawked about Penang for sale — a piece of evidence suggesting that the sultan’s resources were already dissipated.
Significance
The visit of O’Hallaran is of interest for several reasons. First, it confirms the impression conveyed by the Bengal report of 7 October 1820 that the promises of military and pecuniary aid made in 1819 had never been effectively fulfilled, and that the Sultan remained in a state of dependence at Pedir, far from his “good city” of Acheen. Second, it shows that the gifts which Lord Minto had sent to the Achehnese court some years earlier — probably during his Governor-Generalship of Bengal (1807–1813) — had been squandered by the sultan, a fact which the Asiatic Journal treated as an omen of what would become of any further British aid.
The episode also reveals the deep mismatch between British expectations of oriental monarchy and the realities of Achehnese power. O’Hallaran arrived “in state”, expecting a court comparable to Lucknow; what he found was “a poor creature” in a wretched atap house. Van der Kemp remarks that “we know that the letter-writer was wholly correctly informed; all that he further observed would also prove to be entirely correct”. Raffles’s own organ, the Asiatic Journal, was afterwards incensed that the article had been printed, and described it as “an example of the mischievous uses to which a free press may be perverted in India”.
See Also
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.