George Swinton was the Government Secretary at Calcutta in the early 1820s. He appears in P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the official to whom a dispatch from the Penang government was addressed concerning the Acheh question in the period following the death of Sultan Djohar in December 1823.
The Penang Dispatch on the Acheh Crisis
Van der Kemp introduces Swinton in the eleventh appendix of his article, which preserves a dispatch from the Penang government to “the Government Secretary George Swinton at Calcutta”. The dispatch opens with a reference to a letter of 11 November 1820, in which the Penang government had already urged the taking of military measures for Acheh. The Penang government recalled that, “in deference to the opinion of the Commissioners for Acheen, the idea of then sending a resident, or troops to enforce the observance of the treaty has been relinquished”; but it contended that “affairs between the British and Achinese Governments have now arrived at that crisis when decisive and even coercive measures alone can prove beneficial to the interests of our Honorable employers”. The dispatch reminded Calcutta that “pecuniary assistance and military stores to a great amount were afforded in 1819 by the agents of the Governor-General with the view of securing to the legitimate house of Acheen its sovereignty, and the peaceful and undisputed exercise of its authority”, but that temporising measures had proved unavailing.
The Penang government accordingly proposed, in its letter to Swinton, the alternatives of “positive interference contemplated in 1819” or the relinquishment of “all future interference in the Acheen concerns”, and it warned of the danger of an alliance between the Dutch and the Achinese, which “would possibly be accepted with avidity by the ejected party”. The dispatch, transmitted through Swinton’s office, is one of the principal documents by which the Penang government sought, after the death of Sultan Djohar, to revive the policy of coercion which Raffles and the Acheh commission of 1819 had reluctantly set aside.
Role in the Bengal Administration
As Government Secretary at Calcutta, Swinton stood at the apex of the official correspondence between the Government of India and its subordinate presidencies. The letter preserved by Van der Kemp is significant not so much for Swinton’s personal action as for the fact that it placed before the Supreme Government the choice which would determine the future of British relations with Acheh. The Calcutta government ultimately chose the second alternative — relinquishment of interference — and the Acheh treaty of 1819 became, as Van der Kemp emphasises, a “dead letter”. The Swinton correspondence marks one of the last moments at which a more active British policy towards Acheh was seriously pressed upon the Supreme Government.
Van der Kemp gives no further biographical particulars of Swinton, but notes that other letters on Achehnese affairs, in connection with the death of Sultan Djohar, are preserved in the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection. The single dispatch printed in his appendix is offered as sufficient to illustrate the position taken by the Penang government.
See Also
- Death of Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Dead letter
- 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.
George Swinton was the Government Secretary at Calcutta in the early 1820s. He appears in P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the official to whom a dispatch from the Penang government was addressed concerning the Acheh question in the period following the death of Sultan Djohar in December 1823.
The Penang Dispatch on the Acheh Crisis
Van der Kemp introduces Swinton in the eleventh appendix of his article, which preserves a dispatch from the Penang government to “the Government Secretary George Swinton at Calcutta”. The dispatch opens with a reference to a letter of 11 November 1820, in which the Penang government had already urged the taking of military measures for Acheh. The Penang government recalled that, “in deference to the opinion of the Commissioners for Acheen, the idea of then sending a resident, or troops to enforce the observance of the treaty has been relinquished”; but it contended that “affairs between the British and Achinese Governments have now arrived at that crisis when decisive and even coercive measures alone can prove beneficial to the interests of our Honorable employers”. The dispatch reminded Calcutta that “pecuniary assistance and military stores to a great amount were afforded in 1819 by the agents of the Governor-General with the view of securing to the legitimate house of Acheen its sovereignty, and the peaceful and undisputed exercise of its authority”, but that temporising measures had proved unavailing.
The Penang government accordingly proposed, in its letter to Swinton, the alternatives of “positive interference contemplated in 1819” or the relinquishment of “all future interference in the Acheen concerns”, and it warned of the danger of an alliance between the Dutch and the Achinese, which “would possibly be accepted with avidity by the ejected party”. The dispatch, transmitted through Swinton’s office, is one of the principal documents by which the Penang government sought, after the death of Sultan Djohar, to revive the policy of coercion which Raffles and the Acheh commission of 1819 had reluctantly set aside.
Role in the Bengal Administration
As Government Secretary at Calcutta, Swinton stood at the apex of the official correspondence between the Government of India and its subordinate presidencies. The letter preserved by Van der Kemp is significant not so much for Swinton’s personal action as for the fact that it placed before the Supreme Government the choice which would determine the future of British relations with Acheh. The Calcutta government ultimately chose the second alternative — relinquishment of interference — and the Acheh treaty of 1819 became, as Van der Kemp emphasises, a “dead letter”. The Swinton correspondence marks one of the last moments at which a more active British policy towards Acheh was seriously pressed upon the Supreme Government.
Van der Kemp gives no further biographical particulars of Swinton, but notes that other letters on Achehnese affairs, in connection with the death of Sultan Djohar, are preserved in the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection. The single dispatch printed in his appendix is offered as sufficient to illustrate the position taken by the Penang government.
See Also
- Death of Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Dead letter
- 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.