G. Lauts — hoogleeraar (professor) Lauts — was a Dutch historian of the East Indian archipelago, the author of a multi-volume Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indië (History of the Netherlands Indies) whose sixth volume (1866) is cited by Van der Kemp as one of the chief transmitters of a long-standing misreading of Article 6 of the Raffles–Coombs convention of April 1819.
The Misreading of Article 6
Lauts’s Geschiedenis, volume VI (1866), p. 149 note 1, contains the question — rhetorical, in the original — “Had not Raffles and Coombs, in the treaty of their own authority concluded with the sultan of Acheh of the 22nd of Grass-month 1819, by Article 6 excluded the trade of that kingdom to all other European powers and the Americans?” Van der Kemp introduces Lauts as the first in a chain of Dutch historians — followed by Smulders and Meinsma — who repeated, without examination of the treaty text, the proposition that Article 6 of the Acheh convention established a British commercial monopoly over the sultanate.
Van der Kemp’s answer to Lauts’s rhetorical question is emphatic: “Absolutely not, and [the treaty] was not even of its own authority concluded.” Both halves of Lauts’s statement are, in Van der Kemp’s reading, false. The treaty of April 1819 had been concluded by a commission duly authorised by the Governor-General of Bengal, not by Raffles and Coombs on their own authority; and Article 6, properly read, contained no exclusion of European or American trade. What Article 6 did was to prohibit the permanent settlement of Europeans in Acheh — a prohibition on territorial establishment, not on commerce.
Lauts in the Chain of Error
Van der Kemp treats Lauts’s reading as the first link in a historiographical chain that ran from the official instructions of Minister Elout of 31 August 1824 — themselves derived from Falck’s advice of 6 August 1824 — through the official Nota of 1873, and into the standard Dutch histories of the second half of the nineteenth century. The same reading was repeated by Smulders in his dissertation on the treaty of 1824 (p. 105), by Meinsma in his Geschiedenis (II, p. 180), and by the Tijdschrift voor Ned.-Indië. Lauts’s volume of 1866 thus stands at the head of a thirty-year-long misrepresentation that Van der Kemp, writing in 1900, sets himself to correct.
Significance
The importance of Lauts’s error lies not merely in bibliographical pedantry. As Van der Kemp demonstrates, the misreading of Article 6 formed the documentary basis upon which the British plenipotentiaries at London in February 1824 had argued that the Acheh convention was incompatible with Article 3 of the proposed Anglo-Dutch treaty, and upon which the Dutch plenipotentiaries had agreed to a separate declaration acknowledging Achehnese “independence.” The declaration, in turn, became the foundation of the long Anglo-Dutch paper war over Acheh that lasted until the Sumatra-tractaat of 1871. Lauts’s repetition of the misreading, by lending it the authority of the professorial chair, helped to perpetuate the diplomatic error long after its original causes had passed.
See Also
- Smulders
- J. J. Meinsma
- J. H. P. E. Kniphorst
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Elout
- P. H. van der Kemp
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.
G. Lauts — hoogleeraar (professor) Lauts — was a Dutch historian of the East Indian archipelago, the author of a multi-volume Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indië (History of the Netherlands Indies) whose sixth volume (1866) is cited by Van der Kemp as one of the chief transmitters of a long-standing misreading of Article 6 of the Raffles–Coombs convention of April 1819.
The Misreading of Article 6
Lauts’s Geschiedenis, volume VI (1866), p. 149 note 1, contains the question — rhetorical, in the original — “Had not Raffles and Coombs, in the treaty of their own authority concluded with the sultan of Acheh of the 22nd of Grass-month 1819, by Article 6 excluded the trade of that kingdom to all other European powers and the Americans?” Van der Kemp introduces Lauts as the first in a chain of Dutch historians — followed by Smulders and Meinsma — who repeated, without examination of the treaty text, the proposition that Article 6 of the Acheh convention established a British commercial monopoly over the sultanate.
Van der Kemp’s answer to Lauts’s rhetorical question is emphatic: “Absolutely not, and [the treaty] was not even of its own authority concluded.” Both halves of Lauts’s statement are, in Van der Kemp’s reading, false. The treaty of April 1819 had been concluded by a commission duly authorised by the Governor-General of Bengal, not by Raffles and Coombs on their own authority; and Article 6, properly read, contained no exclusion of European or American trade. What Article 6 did was to prohibit the permanent settlement of Europeans in Acheh — a prohibition on territorial establishment, not on commerce.
Lauts in the Chain of Error
Van der Kemp treats Lauts’s reading as the first link in a historiographical chain that ran from the official instructions of Minister Elout of 31 August 1824 — themselves derived from Falck’s advice of 6 August 1824 — through the official Nota of 1873, and into the standard Dutch histories of the second half of the nineteenth century. The same reading was repeated by Smulders in his dissertation on the treaty of 1824 (p. 105), by Meinsma in his Geschiedenis (II, p. 180), and by the Tijdschrift voor Ned.-Indië. Lauts’s volume of 1866 thus stands at the head of a thirty-year-long misrepresentation that Van der Kemp, writing in 1900, sets himself to correct.
Significance
The importance of Lauts’s error lies not merely in bibliographical pedantry. As Van der Kemp demonstrates, the misreading of Article 6 formed the documentary basis upon which the British plenipotentiaries at London in February 1824 had argued that the Acheh convention was incompatible with Article 3 of the proposed Anglo-Dutch treaty, and upon which the Dutch plenipotentiaries had agreed to a separate declaration acknowledging Achehnese “independence.” The declaration, in turn, became the foundation of the long Anglo-Dutch paper war over Acheh that lasted until the Sumatra-tractaat of 1871. Lauts’s repetition of the misreading, by lending it the authority of the professorial chair, helped to perpetuate the diplomatic error long after its original causes had passed.
See Also
- Smulders
- J. J. Meinsma
- J. H. P. E. Kniphorst
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Elout
- P. H. van der Kemp
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.