Lord Minto (1751–1814), born Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, was a British statesman who served as Governor-General of Bengal from 1807 until his death in 1814. He is mentioned by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the predecessor of Lord Moira in the governor-generalship and as the donor of a service of porcelain to the Achehnese sultan which became a curious byword of the futility of British presents to that court.
The Porcelain Gift to the Sultan of Acheh
The single direct mention of Lord Minto in Van der Kemp’s article occurs in a passage drawn from a Penang newspaper of 2 June 1820, describing the visit of Colonel O’Hallaran to Sultan Djohar at Pedir. The letter-writer observed that the Sultan had been promised, by the late commissioners, an immediate supply of money and military stores, and that he had talked of raising a corps of 600 men and marching with his great guns from Pedir to his “good city of Acheen”. “I dare say”, the correspondent continued, “he will never be able to execute one half of his present intentions… I make no doubt if this story about the money and military stores be true the former will be soon squandered away, and the latter share the same fate with the handsome service of porcelain which lord Minto sent him some years ago, the greater part of which was shortly after hawked about Penang for sale.”
The passage establishes two things. First, that Lord Minto, during his Governor-Generalship of Bengal (1807–1813), had caused a handsome porcelain service to be sent to the Sultan of Acheh as a diplomatic gift — a token of the continued British interest in maintaining friendly relations with the Achehnese court even after the abandonment of any project of settlement there. Second, that the gift had almost immediately been disposed of by the Sultan, and that the pieces had found their way to the Penang market, where they were openly sold. The episode was remembered at Penang in 1820 as a warning of what would become of any further British aid.
Lord Minto’s Indian Administration
Although Van der Kemp does not enter into the general history of Lord Minto’s administration, certain features of it bear upon the Acheh question. Minto had been called to the governor-generalship at a moment of acute danger for British India: the French threat in the East Indies had materialised in the Java expedition of 1811, and Minto had himself dispatched the expedition which, under the immediate command of Major Farquhar and others, wrested Java from the Franco-Dutch government. His interest in the eastern seas and his awareness of the importance of the Dutch colonial position were therefore well established. The porcelain gift to the Achehnese sultan may be regarded as a minor expression of that broader strategic concern.
Minto died on 21 June 1814, at the age of 62, and was succeeded in the governor-generalship by Lord Moira, who in 1819 would dispatch the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission that concluded the Acheh treaty of 1819. The Earl of Minto’s own correspondence with Acheh, of which the porcelain gift was a token, represents the earlier and quieter phase of British relations with the sultanate, before the Acheh succession dispute had been complicated by the Hussein expedition of 1815 and the rival claims of Syf ul-Alum.
Legacy in the Acheh Question
The porcelain anecdote is significant for Van der Kemp’s argument because it confirms, by an independent piece of evidence, the impression conveyed by the official dispatches — that the Sultan of Acheh possessed neither the resources nor the discipline to make effective use of British aid. The fate of Minto’s porcelain service was the precursor of the fate of the rupees and military stores supplied under the Treaty of Pedir of 22 April 1819, of which the Bengal report of 7 October 1820 complained that “a considerable part of the money did not come into the hands of the King but was disposed of in a manner not sufficiently explained at Prince of Wales’ Island, where the bills of the mission on Bengal were negotiated”.
See Also
- Lord Moira
- Colonel O’Hallaran
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Major William Farquhar
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.
Lord Minto (1751–1814), born Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, was a British statesman who served as Governor-General of Bengal from 1807 until his death in 1814. He is mentioned by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the predecessor of Lord Moira in the governor-generalship and as the donor of a service of porcelain to the Achehnese sultan which became a curious byword of the futility of British presents to that court.
The Porcelain Gift to the Sultan of Acheh
The single direct mention of Lord Minto in Van der Kemp’s article occurs in a passage drawn from a Penang newspaper of 2 June 1820, describing the visit of Colonel O’Hallaran to Sultan Djohar at Pedir. The letter-writer observed that the Sultan had been promised, by the late commissioners, an immediate supply of money and military stores, and that he had talked of raising a corps of 600 men and marching with his great guns from Pedir to his “good city of Acheen”. “I dare say”, the correspondent continued, “he will never be able to execute one half of his present intentions… I make no doubt if this story about the money and military stores be true the former will be soon squandered away, and the latter share the same fate with the handsome service of porcelain which lord Minto sent him some years ago, the greater part of which was shortly after hawked about Penang for sale.”
The passage establishes two things. First, that Lord Minto, during his Governor-Generalship of Bengal (1807–1813), had caused a handsome porcelain service to be sent to the Sultan of Acheh as a diplomatic gift — a token of the continued British interest in maintaining friendly relations with the Achehnese court even after the abandonment of any project of settlement there. Second, that the gift had almost immediately been disposed of by the Sultan, and that the pieces had found their way to the Penang market, where they were openly sold. The episode was remembered at Penang in 1820 as a warning of what would become of any further British aid.
Lord Minto’s Indian Administration
Although Van der Kemp does not enter into the general history of Lord Minto’s administration, certain features of it bear upon the Acheh question. Minto had been called to the governor-generalship at a moment of acute danger for British India: the French threat in the East Indies had materialised in the Java expedition of 1811, and Minto had himself dispatched the expedition which, under the immediate command of Major Farquhar and others, wrested Java from the Franco-Dutch government. His interest in the eastern seas and his awareness of the importance of the Dutch colonial position were therefore well established. The porcelain gift to the Achehnese sultan may be regarded as a minor expression of that broader strategic concern.
Minto died on 21 June 1814, at the age of 62, and was succeeded in the governor-generalship by Lord Moira, who in 1819 would dispatch the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission that concluded the Acheh treaty of 1819. The Earl of Minto’s own correspondence with Acheh, of which the porcelain gift was a token, represents the earlier and quieter phase of British relations with the sultanate, before the Acheh succession dispute had been complicated by the Hussein expedition of 1815 and the rival claims of Syf ul-Alum.
Legacy in the Acheh Question
The porcelain anecdote is significant for Van der Kemp’s argument because it confirms, by an independent piece of evidence, the impression conveyed by the official dispatches — that the Sultan of Acheh possessed neither the resources nor the discipline to make effective use of British aid. The fate of Minto’s porcelain service was the precursor of the fate of the rupees and military stores supplied under the Treaty of Pedir of 22 April 1819, of which the Bengal report of 7 October 1820 complained that “a considerable part of the money did not come into the hands of the King but was disposed of in a manner not sufficiently explained at Prince of Wales’ Island, where the bills of the mission on Bengal were negotiated”.
See Also
- Lord Moira
- Colonel O’Hallaran
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Major William Farquhar
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.