Sartorius

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tagsperson, british-official, agent, diplomat
aliasesMr. Sartorius, British agent Sartorius

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Sartorius was a British agent dispatched from Malacca to Acheh in the early 1820s to demand the surrender of the Wilhelmina mutineers then in the hands of the ex-sultan Syf ul-Alum at Telok Semawé. He is one of the central figures in the protracted dispute over the Wilhelmina affair examined by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900), and his mission became the subject of an explicit reference in the Pinang Nota correspondence.

Demand for the Wilhelmina Mutineers

After the mutiny of the Dutch brig Wilhelmina and the murder of Lieutenant Bouwens, the mutineers — Bouwens’s own crew — had fled with their plunder to Telok Semawé, where Syf ul-Alum, then in the exercise of sovereignty there, had received them. When a Dutch brig was sent from Malacca some six weeks later to demand their surrender, the rumour of its approach had already driven most of the mutineers to flight. “Later the British agent Sartorius came to demand them”, records Van der Kemp. Syf, who had again caused the men to be sought out, was able to find only twelve; three of these escaped a second time, of whom two were still beyond Syf’s territory. Syf thereupon paid 150 dollars for the surrender of the two, so that “Mr Sartorius returned with eleven persons, who via Malacca were forwarded to Batavia”.

The interrogation of those returned apparently gave the Dutch government an unfavourable impression of Syf’s conduct, for at Batavia’s order the governor of Malacca, Timmerman Thyssen, addressed a missive on 20 January 1821 to the Penang government, demanding the stolen money and the persons still believed to be in captivity, and specifically calling for the surrender of nineteen named individuals as criminals. The dispatch was delivered by Colonel Lucas aboard the man-of-war Irene, and led to the Lucas mission to Telok Semawé.

Sartorius and the Penang Government

The Penang government, now under Governor Phillips, examined Syf at length in February 1821, and the ex-sultan gave his account of the affair. Colonel Lucas, in his communications with Phillips during the inquiry, complained that Syf had dealt dishonestly with Sartorius: “if the Prince had wished to behave with honour, he would not have left Mr Sartorius ignorant of such an important affair, but have informed him of being the depository of money and a watch ill possessed of”. Lucas accordingly requested Phillips to take necessary measures for proving the affair, particularly since “there is a woman from captain Bouwens’s ship who can give clear proofs”. Phillips, however, replied — through Government Secretary W. A. Clubley — that Syf ul-Alum, being in the admitted exercise of sovereignty at Telok Semawé at the time the mutineers arrived, was not subject to legal adjudication by the Penang courts for acts done within that territory. The “Hon’ble the Governor in Council” could only express regret that the absence of the Recorder precluded a legal opinion on the case, and could reassure Lucas that the Government would continue to apprehend any further mutineers obtained.

The Mission to Acheh and the Pinang Nota

A more important reference to Sartorius occurs in Van der Kemp’s discussion of the Penang government’s later policy towards Acheh. Phillips, in his minute of November 1823, wrote of “Mr Sartorius’s mission to Acheen” that the Honourable Court had “kindly viewed” it and that the Penang government had since confined its representations on Achehnese affairs to the Supreme Government. The substance of Sartorius’s Acheh mission, as Van der Kemp explains with reference to Anderson’s Acheen (1840), was that he carried with him “the ratified treaty, with a letter directed to the king, to conciliate the chiefs of the country. He was also to receive as many of the chiefs as possible, to visit them, and to persuade them to offer their allegiance to Johor Allum.” Sartorius was accordingly instructed to inform Johar Allum that all the elders, learned men, and chiefs of Acheh had, at the festival of the last fast, come to entreat his pardon.

Van der Kemp notes that he could find no further particulars of Sartorius’s mission in Anderson. It nonetheless emerges from Phillips’s minute that the mission took place at some point in 1822 or 1823, and that it represented the Penang government’s last serious effort to make good the Acheh treaty of 1819 by attaching the chiefs to Sultan Johar Allum’s cause. Its failure — coinciding as it did with the death of Sultan Johar in December 1823 and the further weakening of the sultan’s party — was one of the considerations which led Phillips to declare that Britain should henceforth “scrupulously abstain from forming any more political relations with native states and from sanction… proceedings likely to affect our political relations with the Dutch without the previous approbation of the Supreme Government”.

See Also

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.

Sartorius was a British agent dispatched from Malacca to Acheh in the early 1820s to demand the surrender of the Wilhelmina mutineers then in the hands of the ex-sultan Syf ul-Alum at Telok Semawé. He is one of the central figures in the protracted dispute over the Wilhelmina affair examined by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900), and his mission became the subject of an explicit reference in the Pinang Nota correspondence.

Demand for the Wilhelmina Mutineers

After the mutiny of the Dutch brig Wilhelmina and the murder of Lieutenant Bouwens, the mutineers — Bouwens’s own crew — had fled with their plunder to Telok Semawé, where Syf ul-Alum, then in the exercise of sovereignty there, had received them. When a Dutch brig was sent from Malacca some six weeks later to demand their surrender, the rumour of its approach had already driven most of the mutineers to flight. “Later the British agent Sartorius came to demand them”, records Van der Kemp. Syf, who had again caused the men to be sought out, was able to find only twelve; three of these escaped a second time, of whom two were still beyond Syf’s territory. Syf thereupon paid 150 dollars for the surrender of the two, so that “Mr Sartorius returned with eleven persons, who via Malacca were forwarded to Batavia”.

The interrogation of those returned apparently gave the Dutch government an unfavourable impression of Syf’s conduct, for at Batavia’s order the governor of Malacca, Timmerman Thyssen, addressed a missive on 20 January 1821 to the Penang government, demanding the stolen money and the persons still believed to be in captivity, and specifically calling for the surrender of nineteen named individuals as criminals. The dispatch was delivered by Colonel Lucas aboard the man-of-war Irene, and led to the Lucas mission to Telok Semawé.

Sartorius and the Penang Government

The Penang government, now under Governor Phillips, examined Syf at length in February 1821, and the ex-sultan gave his account of the affair. Colonel Lucas, in his communications with Phillips during the inquiry, complained that Syf had dealt dishonestly with Sartorius: “if the Prince had wished to behave with honour, he would not have left Mr Sartorius ignorant of such an important affair, but have informed him of being the depository of money and a watch ill possessed of”. Lucas accordingly requested Phillips to take necessary measures for proving the affair, particularly since “there is a woman from captain Bouwens’s ship who can give clear proofs”. Phillips, however, replied — through Government Secretary W. A. Clubley — that Syf ul-Alum, being in the admitted exercise of sovereignty at Telok Semawé at the time the mutineers arrived, was not subject to legal adjudication by the Penang courts for acts done within that territory. The “Hon’ble the Governor in Council” could only express regret that the absence of the Recorder precluded a legal opinion on the case, and could reassure Lucas that the Government would continue to apprehend any further mutineers obtained.

The Mission to Acheh and the Pinang Nota

A more important reference to Sartorius occurs in Van der Kemp’s discussion of the Penang government’s later policy towards Acheh. Phillips, in his minute of November 1823, wrote of “Mr Sartorius’s mission to Acheen” that the Honourable Court had “kindly viewed” it and that the Penang government had since confined its representations on Achehnese affairs to the Supreme Government. The substance of Sartorius’s Acheh mission, as Van der Kemp explains with reference to Anderson’s Acheen (1840), was that he carried with him “the ratified treaty, with a letter directed to the king, to conciliate the chiefs of the country. He was also to receive as many of the chiefs as possible, to visit them, and to persuade them to offer their allegiance to Johor Allum.” Sartorius was accordingly instructed to inform Johar Allum that all the elders, learned men, and chiefs of Acheh had, at the festival of the last fast, come to entreat his pardon.

Van der Kemp notes that he could find no further particulars of Sartorius’s mission in Anderson. It nonetheless emerges from Phillips’s minute that the mission took place at some point in 1822 or 1823, and that it represented the Penang government’s last serious effort to make good the Acheh treaty of 1819 by attaching the chiefs to Sultan Johar Allum’s cause. Its failure — coinciding as it did with the death of Sultan Johar in December 1823 and the further weakening of the sultan’s party — was one of the considerations which led Phillips to declare that Britain should henceforth “scrupulously abstain from forming any more political relations with native states and from sanction… proceedings likely to affect our political relations with the Dutch without the previous approbation of the Supreme Government”.

See Also

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.

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