Ridder Reinhold — a Dutch envoy who, in the early months of 1824, acted as the temporary head of the Dutch Foreign Office at The Hague — is a minor but consequential figure in P. H. van der Kemp’s account of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 17 March 1824. His role was to receive the Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatches from London and to communicate to them the King’s further instructions, including the royal authorisation of 13 February 1824 concerning the Treaty of Pedir (1819).
A Foreign Office “Without a Head”
Van der Kemp introduces Reinhold with an observation on the state of the Dutch Foreign Office in February 1824. The minister of Foreign Affairs was at that time absent or incapacitated — Van Nagell having recently left the post — and the office “was merely looked after by one of our envoys, Ridder Reinhold, who had no understanding of the matter.” (“…werd slechts waargenomen door een onzer gezanten, ridder Reinhold die van de zaken verstand had.” — the force of the phrase is “had no understanding of the matter.”) It was precisely because both the Foreign and Colonial offices were thus headless that the papers of the London negotiators were referred for advice to Minister Elout of Finance, former commissioner-general, even though colonial affairs were not strictly within his departmental remit.
The Authorisation of 13 February 1824
On the day after Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824, Reinhold received the following communication from the King’s secretary of state for Foreign Affairs: “His Majesty holds the Department of Foreign Affairs authorised, in accordance with its proposals, to have the further instructions to be given conveyed by Captain Elout, at the same time apprising the Plenipotentiaries that, should they succeed in bringing the matter to an end in the spirit of those instructions, they may sign the treaty forthwith with the British plenipotentiaries.” The King further directed that they need not be held back by a British objection “to letting drop an existing treaty with the kingdom of Acheh,” but might yield to that objection “if it is true that the treaty has only hospitality and assistance to shipwrecked ships and sailors for its object.” It was this conditional proviso — “if it is true” — that proved, when the Acheh treaty was read in London on 23 February 1824, not to be true.
Reinhold’s Report to Elout
Reinhold thereupon informed Minister Elout that the King had acted entirely in accordance with Elout’s advice. “The Nota of remarks,” he wrote, “which Your Excellency yesterday caused to be delivered to me, having been laid before the King with reference to the draft of a treaty to be concluded with Great Britain, the Plenipotentiaries have been provided with instructions in accordance therewith, while the conveyance thereof has been entrusted to Captain Elout; of all which I have the honour hereby to acquaint Your Excellency.” This brief missive, Van der Kemp notes, was printed in Elout’s Bijdragen and is one of the few primary records of the official transaction.
Reinhold’s Further Communications
Reinhold’s role did not end with the despatch of Captain Elout. He was also responsible for the short covering letter by which the King’s instructions were transmitted to the plenipotentiaries — a letter printed, on page 209 of Elout’s Bijdragen, in Van der Kemp’s text. When the Acheh treaty was at last read in London on 23 February, the plenipotentiaries immediately wrote home on 21 February; their dispatch of that date, together with the further dispatch of 24 February concerning the British supplementary notes, was likewise addressed to Reinhold as the acting head of Foreign Affairs.
Assessment
Van der Kemp’s judgement of Reinhold is severe in its brevity: he was an interim figure “without understanding of the matter,” called to preside over one of the most delicate diplomatic transactions in Dutch colonial history at a moment when the responsible minister was absent. The fact that the responsibility for the Acheh reservation ultimately lay with the King, and that the question was referred for substantive advice to Elout, meant that Reinhold’s personal role was that of a competent channel rather than an active policy-maker. But the structural defect — a Foreign Office without a permanent head at such a moment — is, in Van der Kemp’s reading, one of the deeper causes of the mishandling of the Acheh question in 1824.
See Also
- Elout
- Captain Elout
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Hendrik Fagel
- Cornelis Felix van Maanen
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824
- King’s authorization of 13 February 1824
- Raising of the Acheh treaty in London negotiations
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 21 February 1824
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 24 February 1824
- Article 6 controversy
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.
Ridder Reinhold — a Dutch envoy who, in the early months of 1824, acted as the temporary head of the Dutch Foreign Office at The Hague — is a minor but consequential figure in P. H. van der Kemp’s account of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 17 March 1824. His role was to receive the Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatches from London and to communicate to them the King’s further instructions, including the royal authorisation of 13 February 1824 concerning the Treaty of Pedir (1819).
A Foreign Office “Without a Head”
Van der Kemp introduces Reinhold with an observation on the state of the Dutch Foreign Office in February 1824. The minister of Foreign Affairs was at that time absent or incapacitated — Van Nagell having recently left the post — and the office “was merely looked after by one of our envoys, Ridder Reinhold, who had no understanding of the matter.” (“…werd slechts waargenomen door een onzer gezanten, ridder Reinhold die van de zaken verstand had.” — the force of the phrase is “had no understanding of the matter.”) It was precisely because both the Foreign and Colonial offices were thus headless that the papers of the London negotiators were referred for advice to Minister Elout of Finance, former commissioner-general, even though colonial affairs were not strictly within his departmental remit.
The Authorisation of 13 February 1824
On the day after Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824, Reinhold received the following communication from the King’s secretary of state for Foreign Affairs: “His Majesty holds the Department of Foreign Affairs authorised, in accordance with its proposals, to have the further instructions to be given conveyed by Captain Elout, at the same time apprising the Plenipotentiaries that, should they succeed in bringing the matter to an end in the spirit of those instructions, they may sign the treaty forthwith with the British plenipotentiaries.” The King further directed that they need not be held back by a British objection “to letting drop an existing treaty with the kingdom of Acheh,” but might yield to that objection “if it is true that the treaty has only hospitality and assistance to shipwrecked ships and sailors for its object.” It was this conditional proviso — “if it is true” — that proved, when the Acheh treaty was read in London on 23 February 1824, not to be true.
Reinhold’s Report to Elout
Reinhold thereupon informed Minister Elout that the King had acted entirely in accordance with Elout’s advice. “The Nota of remarks,” he wrote, “which Your Excellency yesterday caused to be delivered to me, having been laid before the King with reference to the draft of a treaty to be concluded with Great Britain, the Plenipotentiaries have been provided with instructions in accordance therewith, while the conveyance thereof has been entrusted to Captain Elout; of all which I have the honour hereby to acquaint Your Excellency.” This brief missive, Van der Kemp notes, was printed in Elout’s Bijdragen and is one of the few primary records of the official transaction.
Reinhold’s Further Communications
Reinhold’s role did not end with the despatch of Captain Elout. He was also responsible for the short covering letter by which the King’s instructions were transmitted to the plenipotentiaries — a letter printed, on page 209 of Elout’s Bijdragen, in Van der Kemp’s text. When the Acheh treaty was at last read in London on 23 February, the plenipotentiaries immediately wrote home on 21 February; their dispatch of that date, together with the further dispatch of 24 February concerning the British supplementary notes, was likewise addressed to Reinhold as the acting head of Foreign Affairs.
Assessment
Van der Kemp’s judgement of Reinhold is severe in its brevity: he was an interim figure “without understanding of the matter,” called to preside over one of the most delicate diplomatic transactions in Dutch colonial history at a moment when the responsible minister was absent. The fact that the responsibility for the Acheh reservation ultimately lay with the King, and that the question was referred for substantive advice to Elout, meant that Reinhold’s personal role was that of a competent channel rather than an active policy-maker. But the structural defect — a Foreign Office without a permanent head at such a moment — is, in Van der Kemp’s reading, one of the deeper causes of the mishandling of the Acheh question in 1824.
See Also
- Elout
- Captain Elout
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Hendrik Fagel
- Cornelis Felix van Maanen
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824
- King’s authorization of 13 February 1824
- Raising of the Acheh treaty in London negotiations
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 21 February 1824
- Dutch plenipotentiaries’ dispatch of 24 February 1824
- Article 6 controversy
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.