Anjer (modern Anyer) was the point on the north-west extremity of Java — at the eastern entrance of the Sunda Strait — that ships from Europe and India routinely called at for fresh provisions and water before proceeding to Batavia or beyond. In P. H. van der Kemp’s Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, Anjer appears as one of the two places (with Tapanoeli on the west coast of Sumatra) for which the Dutch plenipotentiaries of 1824 offered the British special assurances of friendly reception, in articles 11 and 12 of the draft convention that preceded the treaty of 17 March 1824.
Article 11 of the draft convention
The proposed article read, in Van der Kemp’s text, that “the English ships which shall come to the point of Anjer on Java shall always be received there in the friendliest manner and be supplied with all necessaries of refreshments, in the same way as the ships under the Dutch flag.” Such hospitality was, of course, ordinary courtesy at a refreshment station; but by elevating it to a treaty right, the Dutch plenipotentiaries Falck and Fagel converted a routine practice into a durable privilege capable of generating disputes.
Elout’s warning
Minister Elout, to whom the draft was referred for advice on 12 February 1824, sharply criticised articles 10, 11 and 12 in his famous nota. “The friendly reception at Anjer,” he observed, “is so much in the spirit of our government that it cannot or will not be refused. To give a right to it therefore has the disadvantage of being superfluous on our side; but a discontented ship’s captain makes a complaint, perhaps without reason, and there is at once a point of friction between the two governments. Experience teaches that this is no fanciful supposition.” The article, in his view, belonged to the class of stipulations which “have so many and such great objections that one does not hesitate to advise His Majesty positively rather to settle the whole matter with a sum of money, even the sum demanded, than by the treaty to grant any special and durable privileges which one fears may be contested from more than one side.”
A strange reproof
Van der Kemp finds the whole affair singular. The plenipotentiaries had, “in a state paper besides, what an expression!”, volunteered to fly the British flag at Anjer and at Tapanoeli in the friendliest spirit. “And that same work we now went and undid again, by our promise to treat the British flag at Anjer and at Tapanoeli in the friendliest manner.” The King followed Elout’s advice and dropped the special privileges. The incident thus stands as a small but characteristic example of the loose concessions which, in Van der Kemp’s account, the Dutch negotiators of 1824 were too ready to make to their British counterparts.
See Also
- Java
- Tapanoeli
- Batavia
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Hendrik Fagel
- Elout
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Netherlands India
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.