O. F. Metcalfe was the Secretary to Government at Fort William, the seat of the Bengal Presidency at Calcutta, in the years immediately following the Acheh commission of 1819. He appears in P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the addressee of Raffles’s important defence dated “Fort Marlborough the 30th September 1819”, in which the lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen justified his conduct in dispatching the Honourable Company’s ship Minto to Pedir without consulting either Bannerman or Coombs.
The 30 September 1819 Defence
Raffles’s letter to Metcalfe is one of the principal documents printed in Van der Kemp’s fifth appendix. The cover is addressed “O. F. Metcalfe Esq. Secretary to the Government Fort William” and the subject is “the arbitrary sending away of the Minto to Pedir”. Raffles opens by noting that “it was only on the twenty sixth instant, that I had the honor to receive your letter of the eight April last, on the subject of my having sent the Minto to Pedir”. He then proceeds to set out for the information of “His Excellency the Governor-General in Council” the circumstances under which the dispatch had been ordered.
The defence explains that the reasons which induced Raffles “at a short notice to embark from Penang in order to accompany Major Farquhar to the Eastward” had been communicated by the Governor of Penang, and that, having detached the Minto with instructions of which a copy was enclosed, Raffles had acted in concert with Farquhar’s advice. He emphasised that the “object was strictly confined to the communication of our appointment and the interference of the Dutch” and that “the very words, in which Captain Criddle was alone authorized to express himself, were laid down for his guidance”. Raffles’s letter to Metcalfe is therefore the chief record by which the dispatch of the Minto is defended ex post facto before the Supreme Government.
Role in the Bengal Administration
As Secretary to Government at Fort William, Metcalfe was the channel through which official correspondence passed between the Bengal government and its subordinates at Penang and Bencoolen. The Bengal government had been moved to make inquiry by the complaints of Bannerman and Coombs, and Metcalfe’s letter of 8 April 1819 (to which Raffles replied on 30 September) had evidently demanded an explanation. The Bengal report to the Court of Directors of 7 October 1820, which Van der Kemp cites extensively, was prepared on the basis of the documents that passed through Metcalfe’s office, and its judgement — that Raffles’s dispatch of the Minto had been “contrary to the spirit of our instructions” and “obviously improper without previous communication with his colleague” — represents the official verdict on the episode.
Van der Kemp mentions Metcalfe only in his capacity as recipient of the 30 September 1819 letter, and no biographical particulars of him are given. His historical significance in the Acheh question is essentially that of the official through whose hands the documents passed, and by whose letter of 8 April 1819 the demand for explanation was issued.
See Also
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Lieutenant Criddle
- Dispatch of the Minto to Pedir
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
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.
O. F. Metcalfe was the Secretary to Government at Fort William, the seat of the Bengal Presidency at Calcutta, in the years immediately following the Acheh commission of 1819. He appears in P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) as the addressee of Raffles’s important defence dated “Fort Marlborough the 30th September 1819”, in which the lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen justified his conduct in dispatching the Honourable Company’s ship Minto to Pedir without consulting either Bannerman or Coombs.
The 30 September 1819 Defence
Raffles’s letter to Metcalfe is one of the principal documents printed in Van der Kemp’s fifth appendix. The cover is addressed “O. F. Metcalfe Esq. Secretary to the Government Fort William” and the subject is “the arbitrary sending away of the Minto to Pedir”. Raffles opens by noting that “it was only on the twenty sixth instant, that I had the honor to receive your letter of the eight April last, on the subject of my having sent the Minto to Pedir”. He then proceeds to set out for the information of “His Excellency the Governor-General in Council” the circumstances under which the dispatch had been ordered.
The defence explains that the reasons which induced Raffles “at a short notice to embark from Penang in order to accompany Major Farquhar to the Eastward” had been communicated by the Governor of Penang, and that, having detached the Minto with instructions of which a copy was enclosed, Raffles had acted in concert with Farquhar’s advice. He emphasised that the “object was strictly confined to the communication of our appointment and the interference of the Dutch” and that “the very words, in which Captain Criddle was alone authorized to express himself, were laid down for his guidance”. Raffles’s letter to Metcalfe is therefore the chief record by which the dispatch of the Minto is defended ex post facto before the Supreme Government.
Role in the Bengal Administration
As Secretary to Government at Fort William, Metcalfe was the channel through which official correspondence passed between the Bengal government and its subordinates at Penang and Bencoolen. The Bengal government had been moved to make inquiry by the complaints of Bannerman and Coombs, and Metcalfe’s letter of 8 April 1819 (to which Raffles replied on 30 September) had evidently demanded an explanation. The Bengal report to the Court of Directors of 7 October 1820, which Van der Kemp cites extensively, was prepared on the basis of the documents that passed through Metcalfe’s office, and its judgement — that Raffles’s dispatch of the Minto had been “contrary to the spirit of our instructions” and “obviously improper without previous communication with his colleague” — represents the official verdict on the episode.
Van der Kemp mentions Metcalfe only in his capacity as recipient of the 30 September 1819 letter, and no biographical particulars of him are given. His historical significance in the Acheh question is essentially that of the official through whose hands the documents passed, and by whose letter of 8 April 1819 the demand for explanation was issued.
See Also
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Lieutenant Criddle
- Dispatch of the Minto to Pedir
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
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.