W. A. Clubley

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W. A. Clubley was a British East India Company official who served as Government Secretary at Penang in the early 1820s and sat as a member of the Penang council. In the Achehnese record he is principally significant for two pieces of correspondence: his reply of 12 February 1821 to Colonel E. Lucas on the Wilhelmina mutineers affair, and his concurrence, with R. Ibbetson, in Governor Fullerton’s minute on Acheh of 21 March 1825.

The Lucas Correspondence of February 1821

In February 1821 the Dutch governor of Malacca, Timmerman Thyssen, dispatched Colonel E. Lucas in the man-of-war Irene to Telok Semawé to demand the surrender of the Wilhelmina mutineers and of the specie they had plundered. Lucas had sought, through the Penang government, to secure the interposition of the British authority at Acheh. After Governor Phillips had decided, in his minute of 1 February 1821, to oppose the project, it fell to Clubley, as Government Secretary, to draft the formal reply. The dispatch, dated 12 February 1821 and printed in summary in Van der Kemp’s text, observed that Syf ul-Alum’s statement «was obtained as a matter of courtesy to your Government and was believed to be accurate» from a variety of circumstances, principally «from the fact of Syful Alum having rendered it willingly and freely». The Governor in Council, Clubley continued, «deems it inexpedient to call upon him for any further explanation», because admitting his conduct to have been as imputed, «this Government [would have] to prove against him what it has not the power to punish». Syf, having exercised sovereign authority at Telok Semawé when the mutineers arrived with their plunder, could not now be subjected to legal adjudication at Penang in respect of acts done within his own territory. As to the woman whose testimony Lucas had requested, her evidence, a copy of which was enclosed, «does not afford grounds for any further interference on the part of this Government as far as relates to Syful Alum».

Lucas, in a reply of the same day, acknowledged himself «under great obligations» for the trouble taken, and the Dutch vessel returned to Malacca without its errand accomplished.

Concurrence in Fullerton’s Minute of 21 March 1825

When, in March 1825, Governor Fullerton drafted his minute on Acheh in response to the Bengal inquiry of 28 January 1825, Clubley, with Ibbetson, concurred on 7 April 1825. The minute, which is printed as Appendix 10 of Van der Kemp’s article, declared the Acheh treaty of 1819 to have been in no respect observed and to have remained «a dead letter», and warned of the dangers to which the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824) had exposed British commerce on Sumatra’s East Coast. Clubley’s name thus stands attached, with those of Fullerton and Ibbetson, to one of the most candid British expositions of the political risks created by the London treaty.

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.

W. A. Clubley was a British East India Company official who served as Government Secretary at Penang in the early 1820s and sat as a member of the Penang council. In the Achehnese record he is principally significant for two pieces of correspondence: his reply of 12 February 1821 to Colonel E. Lucas on the Wilhelmina mutineers affair, and his concurrence, with R. Ibbetson, in Governor Fullerton’s minute on Acheh of 21 March 1825.

The Lucas Correspondence of February 1821

In February 1821 the Dutch governor of Malacca, Timmerman Thyssen, dispatched Colonel E. Lucas in the man-of-war Irene to Telok Semawé to demand the surrender of the Wilhelmina mutineers and of the specie they had plundered. Lucas had sought, through the Penang government, to secure the interposition of the British authority at Acheh. After Governor Phillips had decided, in his minute of 1 February 1821, to oppose the project, it fell to Clubley, as Government Secretary, to draft the formal reply. The dispatch, dated 12 February 1821 and printed in summary in Van der Kemp’s text, observed that Syf ul-Alum’s statement «was obtained as a matter of courtesy to your Government and was believed to be accurate» from a variety of circumstances, principally «from the fact of Syful Alum having rendered it willingly and freely». The Governor in Council, Clubley continued, «deems it inexpedient to call upon him for any further explanation», because admitting his conduct to have been as imputed, «this Government [would have] to prove against him what it has not the power to punish». Syf, having exercised sovereign authority at Telok Semawé when the mutineers arrived with their plunder, could not now be subjected to legal adjudication at Penang in respect of acts done within his own territory. As to the woman whose testimony Lucas had requested, her evidence, a copy of which was enclosed, «does not afford grounds for any further interference on the part of this Government as far as relates to Syful Alum».

Lucas, in a reply of the same day, acknowledged himself «under great obligations» for the trouble taken, and the Dutch vessel returned to Malacca without its errand accomplished.

Concurrence in Fullerton’s Minute of 21 March 1825

When, in March 1825, Governor Fullerton drafted his minute on Acheh in response to the Bengal inquiry of 28 January 1825, Clubley, with Ibbetson, concurred on 7 April 1825. The minute, which is printed as Appendix 10 of Van der Kemp’s article, declared the Acheh treaty of 1819 to have been in no respect observed and to have remained «a dead letter», and warned of the dangers to which the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824) had exposed British commerce on Sumatra’s East Coast. Clubley’s name thus stands attached, with those of Fullerton and Ibbetson, to one of the most candid British expositions of the political risks created by the London treaty.

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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