Sri Mohammed — titled Admiraal van Atjeh (Admiral of Atjeh) by the Dutch sources — was an Atjeh envoy who, together with the senior ambassador Abdoel Hamid and the nobleman Mir Hassan, formed the Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits in 1602–1603. After the death of Abdoel Hamid at Middelburg in August 1602, Sri Mohammed — by virtue of his office as the sultanate’s admiral — became the senior surviving envoy and delivered the Sultan’s letters and gifts to Prince Maurits at the siege of Grave.
Office: Admiral of Atjeh
The title Admiraal van Atjeh is the Dutch rendering of the Atjehnese office of commander of the sultanate’s fleet. At the turn of the seventeenth century Atjeh was a major naval power in the eastern Indian Ocean, able to threaten Portuguese Malakka with fleets of substantial size. The dispatch of the sultanate’s admiral as envoy to the Republic was therefore a gesture of the highest order: it placed the head of the Atjeh navy at the disposal of the diplomatic mission.
The embassy of 1602
The embassy was the Sultan’s reply to Prince Maurits’s letter of 1601 carried by the four Zeeland ships that had arrived in Atjeh that August, pressing for the release of the Dutch prisoners held since 1599 — most notably Frederik de Houtman. The Sultan had agreed to release the prisoners and to compensate De Houtman for his material losses, and sent three ambassadors on the returning ships: the senior envoy Abdoel Hamid, the admiral Sri Mohammed, and the nobleman Mir Hassan. A Luxemburger, Leonard Werner, served as interpreter.
Death of Abdoel Hamid and succession as senior envoy
The aged Abdoel Hamid — well over seventy — died at Middelburg in August 1602, before the embassy could reach Prince Maurits. Sri Mohammed, as the next-ranking envoy, took his place at the head of the surviving delegation. Godee Molsbergen’s account of the audience at Grave — describing how “de gezant” (the envoy) delivered the letters and gifts — must therefore refer primarily to Sri Mohammed, the senior surviving ambassador.
The audience at Grave
At Prince Maurits’s siege camp before Grave, the surviving Atjeh envoys were received with state. A staatsie-karos (state-coach) attended by a company of cavalry brought them to a house near the Prince’s tent, and after a meal Maurits received them surrounded by a brilliant company of nobles and military commanders. The ambassador — Sri Mohammed — greeted the Prince in the Mohammedan manner and delivered the Sultan Aloeddin’s two letters, returned the Prince’s earlier letter (now marked with the King’s seal), and presented the costly gifts: a kris, a golden dish and cup, “omtrent twee pont Camphora van Borneo” (about two pounds of Borneo camphor, each pound valued at a hundred ducats in those lands), and a lance — the lance being on one of the still-sailing ships.
The Netherlands through Atjeh eyes
For fifteen months the ambassadors stayed in the Republic as guests of the East India Company, “gemerckt zyluyden tot dienst ende confirmatie van de negocie gecomen zijn” — since they had come in the service and confirmation of the trade — and then returned to their country, full of wonder at the land where “soms met menschen, sleden, paarden en wagens over de gestolde wateren trekt” — one sometimes travels over frozen waters with people, sledges, horses and wagons — “dat daar elk man zijn eigen meester en heer is” — that there every man is his own master and lord — “dat daar geen slaven waren, maar vrije menschen” — that there were no slaves there, but free men — “die reeds dertig jaar lang oorlog gevoerd hadden tegen den grooten Koning van Spanje” — who had already fought for thirty years against the great King of Spain — “en dat zij toch rijk waren gebleven” — and yet had remained rich. With such a people the mighty Sultan — “glinsterende als de zon op den middag en als de maan, wanneer zij vol is” (shining like the sun at midday and like the moon when it is full) — could with honour enter into alliance.
Significance
Sri Mohammed is, in the Dutch-Atjeh encounter, the senior surviving ambassador of the 1602 embassy, and the only one whose office — Admiral of Atjeh — is recorded in the Dutch sources. His embassy produced the first Atjeh eyewitness description of the Republic, and his presence at the siege of Grave fixed Atjeh in the military-diplomatic memory of the House of Orange. The Sultan whose envoy he was, Sultan Aloeddin, was the same ruler who had presided over the death of Cornelis de Houtman and the captivity of Frederik — making Sri Mohammed’s embassy the closing chapter of that opening Dutch-Atjeh episode.
See Also
- Abdoel Hamid
- Mir Hassan
- Leonard Werner
- Sultan Aloeddin of Atjeh
- Prince Maurits
- Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits at Grave (1602)
- Frederik de Houtman
- Cornelis de Houtman
- 1602
- 1603
- Acheh
Source
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XXXIII (“Atjehers in het kamp van Maurits. De zeeslag bij Bantam”), pp. 118–121 of the numbered-letter sequence.