Warren Hastings

Properties2
tagsbritish, person, british-official, colonial-official
aliasesHastings, Warren Hastings, governor-generaal van Bengalen, Governor-General of Bengal

11 min read

Warren Hastings (1732–1818) was the first Governor-General of Bengal, from 1773 to 1785, and one of the principal architects of the early British East India Company state in India. In the context of Achehnese history he is remembered as the addressee of the celebrated discourteous letter sent by the then Sultan of Acheh in 1786, in reply to an expression of goodwill — an episode that has come to symbolise the persistent failure of European powers, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to establish reliable friendly relations with the Achehnese court.

The 1786 Letter and Its Context

The arrangements which the British East India Company made with Acheh at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, for the establishment of friendly relations, were, in Snouck Hurgronje’s phrase, “overridden in the most insulting way.” In 1786 Warren Hastings received from the then Sultan of Acheh a discourteous letter in reply to an expression of goodwill. The episode is one of several that punctuated the long attempt, on the part of the British, to find a stable point d’appui on the northern end of Sumatra: in the same year, Captain Francis Light pointed out to the Governor-General of Bengal that a settlement at Pulau Pinang possessed greater advantages than one on the Achehnese coast, since “Acheen is a good road but no place of security against an enemy there.” James Price wrote in similar terms to the Chairman of the Company in London: “I prefer Penang to the Port of Acheen as being more healthy and entirely free from that oppression, luwar and confusion which have ever distressed and at length driven out every European nation who has attempted to settle there.”

Significance for Achehnese History

The letter to Hastings is a token of the structural problem that confronted every European power which sought to deal with Acheh. The Sultan could not, even if he wished, deliver the obedience of the numerous uleebalangs who were the real masters of the country; and the uleebalangs, on their side, had no incentive to respect arrangements made over their heads at the court. Raffles, writing of the treaty made with Acheh in 1819, quotes from the archives of the India Office to show that “Johor Allum as king of Acheen” — “so far as we can collect from your correspondence, not having possessed an established authority in the country which he assumed to represent, has never been in a situation to maintain the relations into which he entered.” The British conclusion of 1786 — that “to subdue all the chiefs” and “to overawe the inhabitants” would be necessary in order to effect the security of trade and shipping in Acheh — was, after a long struggle, to be acquired by the Dutch as well, and forms the prelude to the Acheh War of 1873 onwards.

Warren Hastings’s own share in the episode is slight — he is the recipient rather than the author of the famous discourtesy — but the year 1786 remains a turning-point in the diplomatic history of Acheh. It marked the moment at which the British abandoned the hope of a settlement on the Achehnese coast and turned instead to Penang; and it left the question of Acheh to be settled, in the following century, between the Sultan and the Dutch.

See Also

Sources

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

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.

The Acheh Letter of 7 November 1786

Van der Kemp opens his article with the observation that, down to the eighteenth century, the relations of the European powers with Acheh had «invariably been either very loose or very strained». Even so powerful a figure as Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal, had to resign himself to receiving, in reply to a profession of goodwill, the «brutal communication» conveyed in the sultan’s letter of 7 November 1786. The letter, printed in full as Appendix 1 of Van der Kemp’s article, is from «sultan Munson, son of sultan Ziemul Abudeen» (identified by Professor Veth as Alaue’d-din Mahmoed Shah Djohan, who had come to the throne in 1781 and would die in 1795) to «you who are a valuable and noble friend, and who are known to Hindostan and Arabia». After expressing a desire for lasting friendship with the English, the Sultan turns to the question of the arms:

«The muskets which you sent me, as mentioned in your letter, from not being worth anything, I have returned, and request in future you will send me such as may be useful, or I do not want any, though I ask you for 300 small muskets agreeable to a muster I send by Mr. John Bird after the death of captain Hobbs.»

The letter also relates the death of Captain Hobbs, who had been wounded by a «classy» (i.e. a sailor) from Java while asleep two days out from Tringano, and who died after five or six days on his return to that port; and it mentions the consultations held with «captain Canning and Mr. Phillips» concerning the effects of the deceased.

Significance in the Achehnese Tradition

The incident is cited by Van der Kemp as evidence of the standing difficulty of European relations with Acheh, a difficulty that, in his reading, was the backdrop to the later British preference for Penang (settled at the Quedah treaty of 1786 by Captain Francis Light) over Acheh itself, and ultimately to Raffles’s Treaty of Pedir (1819). The same year 1786 that produced Hastings’s rebuff also produced Light’s settlement at Penang, and thus the future seat of British political superintendence over Achehnese affairs.

Warren Hastings (1732–1818) was the first Governor-General of Bengal, from 1773 to 1785, and one of the principal architects of the early British East India Company state in India. In the context of Achehnese history he is remembered as the addressee of the celebrated discourteous letter sent by the then Sultan of Acheh in 1786, in reply to an expression of goodwill — an episode that has come to symbolise the persistent failure of European powers, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to establish reliable friendly relations with the Achehnese court.

The 1786 Letter and Its Context

The arrangements which the British East India Company made with Acheh at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, for the establishment of friendly relations, were, in Snouck Hurgronje’s phrase, “overridden in the most insulting way.” In 1786 Warren Hastings received from the then Sultan of Acheh a discourteous letter in reply to an expression of goodwill. The episode is one of several that punctuated the long attempt, on the part of the British, to find a stable point d’appui on the northern end of Sumatra: in the same year, Captain Francis Light pointed out to the Governor-General of Bengal that a settlement at Pulau Pinang possessed greater advantages than one on the Achehnese coast, since “Acheen is a good road but no place of security against an enemy there.” James Price wrote in similar terms to the Chairman of the Company in London: “I prefer Penang to the Port of Acheen as being more healthy and entirely free from that oppression, luwar and confusion which have ever distressed and at length driven out every European nation who has attempted to settle there.”

Significance for Achehnese History

The letter to Hastings is a token of the structural problem that confronted every European power which sought to deal with Acheh. The Sultan could not, even if he wished, deliver the obedience of the numerous uleebalangs who were the real masters of the country; and the uleebalangs, on their side, had no incentive to respect arrangements made over their heads at the court. Raffles, writing of the treaty made with Acheh in 1819, quotes from the archives of the India Office to show that “Johor Allum as king of Acheen” — “so far as we can collect from your correspondence, not having possessed an established authority in the country which he assumed to represent, has never been in a situation to maintain the relations into which he entered.” The British conclusion of 1786 — that “to subdue all the chiefs” and “to overawe the inhabitants” would be necessary in order to effect the security of trade and shipping in Acheh — was, after a long struggle, to be acquired by the Dutch as well, and forms the prelude to the Acheh War of 1873 onwards.

Warren Hastings’s own share in the episode is slight — he is the recipient rather than the author of the famous discourtesy — but the year 1786 remains a turning-point in the diplomatic history of Acheh. It marked the moment at which the British abandoned the hope of a settlement on the Achehnese coast and turned instead to Penang; and it left the question of Acheh to be settled, in the following century, between the Sultan and the Dutch.

See Also

Sources

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

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.

The Acheh Letter of 7 November 1786

Van der Kemp opens his article with the observation that, down to the eighteenth century, the relations of the European powers with Acheh had «invariably been either very loose or very strained». Even so powerful a figure as Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal, had to resign himself to receiving, in reply to a profession of goodwill, the «brutal communication» conveyed in the sultan’s letter of 7 November 1786. The letter, printed in full as Appendix 1 of Van der Kemp’s article, is from «sultan Munson, son of sultan Ziemul Abudeen» (identified by Professor Veth as Alaue’d-din Mahmoed Shah Djohan, who had come to the throne in 1781 and would die in 1795) to «you who are a valuable and noble friend, and who are known to Hindostan and Arabia». After expressing a desire for lasting friendship with the English, the Sultan turns to the question of the arms:

«The muskets which you sent me, as mentioned in your letter, from not being worth anything, I have returned, and request in future you will send me such as may be useful, or I do not want any, though I ask you for 300 small muskets agreeable to a muster I send by Mr. John Bird after the death of captain Hobbs.»

The letter also relates the death of Captain Hobbs, who had been wounded by a «classy» (i.e. a sailor) from Java while asleep two days out from Tringano, and who died after five or six days on his return to that port; and it mentions the consultations held with «captain Canning and Mr. Phillips» concerning the effects of the deceased.

Significance in the Achehnese Tradition

The incident is cited by Van der Kemp as evidence of the standing difficulty of European relations with Acheh, a difficulty that, in his reading, was the backdrop to the later British preference for Penang (settled at the Quedah treaty of 1786 by Captain Francis Light) over Acheh itself, and ultimately to Raffles’s Treaty of Pedir (1819). The same year 1786 that produced Hastings’s rebuff also produced Light’s settlement at Penang, and thus the future seat of British political superintendence over Achehnese affairs.

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