Part 41 (2/2)

1619.

Three years afterwards the king made a conquest of the cities of Kedah and Perak on the Malayan coast, and also of a place called Dilli in Sumatra. This last had been strongly fortified by the a.s.sistance of the Portuguese, and gave an opportunity of displaying much skill in the attack. Trenches were regularly opened before it and a siege carried on for six weeks ere it fell. In the same year the king of Jorcan (a place unknown at present by that name) fled for refuge to Malacca with eighty sail of boats, having been expelled his dominions by the king of Achin.

The Portuguese were not in a condition to afford him relief, being themselves surrounded with enemies and fearful of an attack from the Achinese more especially; but the king was then making preparations against an invasion he heard was meditated by the viceroy of Goa.

Reciprocal apprehensions kept each party on the defensive.

1621.

The French being desirous of partic.i.p.ating in the commerce of Achin, of which all the European nations had formed great ideas, and all found themselves disappointed in, sent out a squadron commanded by General Beaulieu, which arrived in January 1621, and finally left it in December of the same year. He brought magnificent presents to the king, but these did not content his insatiable avarice, and he employed a variety of mean arts to draw from him further gifts. Beaulieu met also with many difficulties, and was forced to submit to much extortion in his endeavours to procure a loading of pepper, of which Achin itself, as has been observed, produced but little. The king informed him that he had some time since ordered all the plants to be destroyed, not only because the cultivation of them proved an injury to more useful agriculture, but also lest their produce might tempt the Europeans to serve him, as they had served the kings of Jakatra and Bantam. From this apprehension he had lately been induced to expel the English and Dutch from their settlements at Priaman and Tiku, where the princ.i.p.al quant.i.ty of pepper was procured, and of which places he changed the governor every third year to prevent any connexions dangerous to his authority from being formed. He had likewise driven the Dutch from a factory they were attempting to settle at Padang; which place appears to be the most remote on the western coast of the island to which the Achinese conquests at any time extended.

1628.

Still retaining a strong desire to possess himself of Malacca, so many years the grand object of Achinese ambition, he imprisoned the amba.s.sador then at his court, and made extraordinary preparations for the siege, which he designed to undertake in person. The laksamana or commander in chief (who had effected all the king's late conquests) attempted to oppose this resolution; but the maharaja, willing to flatter his master's propensity, undertook to put him in possession of the city and had the command of the fleet given to him, as the other had of the land forces.

The king set out on the expedition with a fleet of two hundred and fifty sail (fortyseven of them not less than a hundred feet in the keel), in which were twenty thousand men well appointed, and a great train of artillery. After being some time on board, with his family and retinue as usual, he determined, on account of an ill omen that was observed, to return to the sh.o.r.e. The generals, proceeding without him, soon arrived before Malacca. Having landed their men they made a judicious disposition, and began the attack with much courage and military skill.

The Portuguese were obliged to abandon several of their posts, one of which, after a defence of fifty days, was levelled with the ground, and from its ruins strong works were raised by the laksamana. The maharaja had seized another post advantageously situated. From their several camps they had lines of communication, and the boats on the river were stationed in such a manner that the place was completely invested.

Matters were in this posture when a force of two thousand men came to the a.s.sistance of the besieged from the king of Pahang, and likewise five sail of Portuguese vessels from the coast of Coromandel; but all was insufficient to remove so powerful an enemy, although by that time they had lost four thousand of their troops in the different attacks and skirmishes. In the latter end of the year a fleet of thirty sail of s.h.i.+ps, large and small, under the command of Nunno Alvarez Botello, having on board nine hundred European soldiers, appeared off Malacca, and blocked up the fleet of Achin in a river about three miles from the town.

This entirely altered the complexion of affairs. The besiegers retired from their advanced works and hastened to the defence of their galleys, erecting batteries by the side of the river. The maharaja being summoned to surrender returned a civil but resolute answer. In the night, endeavouring to make his escape with the smaller vessels through the midst of the Portuguese, he was repulsed and wounded. Next day the whole force of the Achinese dropped down the stream with a design to fight their way, but after an engagement of two hours their princ.i.p.al galley, named the Terror of the World, was boarded and taken, after losing five hundred men of seven which she carried. Many other vessels were afterwards captured or sunk. The laksamana hung out a white flag and sent to treat with Nunno, but, some difficulty arising about the terms, the engagement was renewed with great warmth. News was brought to the Portuguese that the maharaja was killed and that the king of Pahang was approaching with a hundred sail of vessels to reinforce them. Still the Achinese kept up a dreadful fire, which seemed to render the final success doubtful; but at length they sent proposals desiring only to be allowed three galleys of all their fleet to carry away four thousand men who remained of twenty that came before the town. It was answered that they must surrender at discretion; which the laksamana hesitating to do, a furious a.s.sault took place both by water and land upon his galleys and works, which were all effectually destroyed or captured, not a s.h.i.+p and scarcely a man escaping. He himself in the last extremity fled to the woods, but was seized ere long by the king of Pahang's scouts. Being brought before the governor he said to him, with an undaunted countenance, ”Behold here the laksamana for the first time overcome!” He was treated with respect but kept a prisoner, and sent on his own famous s.h.i.+p to Goa in order to be from thence conveyed to Portugal: but death deprived his enemies of that distinguished ornament of their triumph.

1635.

This signal defeat proved so important a blow to the power of Achin that we read of no further attempts to renew the war until the year 1635, when the king, encouraged by the feuds which at this time prevailed in Malacca, again violated the law of nations, to him little known, by imprisoning their amba.s.sador, and caused all the Portuguese about his court to be murdered. No military operations however immediately took place in consequence of this barbarous proceeding.

1640. 1641.

In the year 1640 the Dutch with twelve men of war, and the king of Achin with twenty-five galleys, appeared before that hara.s.sed and devoted city; which at length, in the following year was wrested from the hands of the Portuguese, who had so long, through such difficulties, maintained possession of it. This year was also marked by the death of the sultan, whom the Dutch writers name Paduka Sri, at the age of sixty, after a reign of thirty-five years; having just lived to see his hereditary foe subdued; and as if the opposition of the Portuguese power, which seems first to have occasioned the rise of that of Achin, was also necessary to its existence, the splendour and consequence of the kingdom from that period rapidly declined.

The prodigious wealth and resources of the monarchy during his reign are best evinced by the expeditions he was enabled to fit out; but being no less covetous than ambitious he contrived to make the expenses fall upon his subjects, and at the same time filled his treasury with gold by pressing the merchants and plundering the neighbouring states. An intelligent person (General Beaulieu), who was for some time at his court, and had opportunities of information on the subject, uses this strong expression--that he was infinitely rich. He constantly employed in his castle three hundred goldsmiths. This would seem an exaggeration, but that it is well known the Malayan princes have them always about them in great numbers at this day, working in the manufacture of filigree, for which the country is so famous. His naval strength has been already sufficiently described. He was possessed of two thousand bra.s.s guns and small arms in proportion. His trained elephants amounted to some hundreds. His armies were probably raised only upon the occasion which called for their acting, and that in a mode similar to what was established under the feudal system in Europe. The valley of Achin alone was said to be able to furnish forty thousand men upon an emergency. A certain number of warriors however were always kept on foot for the protection of the king and his capital. Of these the superior cla.s.s were called ulubalang, and the inferior amba-raja, who were entirely devoted to his service and resembled the janizaries of Constantinople. Two hundred hors.e.m.e.n nightly patrolled the grounds about the castle, the inner courts and apartments of which were guarded by three thousand women. The king's eunuchs amounted to five hundred.

The disposition of this monarch was cruel and sanguinary. A mult.i.tude of instances are recorded of the horrible barbarity of his punishments, and for the most trivial offences. He imprisoned his own mother and put her to the torture, suspecting her to have been engaged in a conspiracy against him with some of the princ.i.p.al n.o.bles, whom he caused to be executed. He murdered his nephew, the king of Johor's son, of whose favour with his mother he was jealous. He also put to death a son of the king of Bantam, and another of the king of Pahang, who were both his near relations. None of the royal family survived in 1622 but his own son, a youth of eighteen, who had been thrice banished the court, and was thought to owe his continuance in life only to his surpa.s.sing his father, if possible, in cruelty, and being hated by all ranks of people. He was at one time made king of Pidir but recalled on account of his excesses, confined in prison and put to strange tortures by his father, whom he did not outlive. The whole territory of Achin was almost depopulated by wars, executions, and oppression. The king endeavoured to repeople the country by his conquests. Having ravaged the kingdoms of Johor, Pahang, Kedah, Perak, and Dilli, he transported the inhabitants from those places to Achin, to the number of twenty-two thousand persons. But this barbarous policy did not produce the effect he hoped; for the unhappy people, being brought naked to his dominions, and not allowed any kind of maintenance on their arrival, died of hunger in the streets. In the planning his military enterprises he was generally guided by the distresses of his neighbours, for whom, as for his prey, he unceasingly lay in wait; and his preparatory measures were taken with such secrecy that the execution alone unravelled them. Insidious political craft and wanton delight in blood united in him to complete the character of a tyrant.

It must here be observed that, with respect to the period of this remarkable reign, the European and Malayan authorities are considerably at variance, the latter a.s.signing to it something less than thirty solar years, and placing the death of Iskander Muda in December 1636. The Annals further state that he was succeeded by sultan Ala-eddinMahayat-shah, who reigned only about four years and died in February 1641. That this is the more accurate account I have no hesitation in believing, although Valentyn, who gives a detail of the king's magnificent funeral, was persuaded that the reign which ended in 1641 was the same that began in 1607. But he collected his information eighty years after the event, and as it does not appear that any European whose journal has been given to the world was on the spot at that period, the death of an obscure monarch who died after a short reign may well have been confounded by persons at a distance with that of his more celebrated predecessor. Both authorities however are agreed in the important fact that the successor to the throne in 1641 was a female.

This person is described by Valentyn as being the wife of the old king, and not his daughter, as by some had been a.s.serted; but from the Annals it appears that she was his daughter, named Taju al-alum; and as it was in her right that Maghayat-shah (certainly her husband), obtained the crown, so upon his decease, there being no male heir, she peaceably succeeded him in the government, and became the first queen regent of Achin. The succession having thenceforward continued nearly sixty years in the female line, this may be regarded as a new era in the history of the country. The n.o.bles finding their power less restrained, and their individual consequence more felt under an administration of this kind than when ruled by kings (as sometimes they were with a rod of iron) supported these pageants, whom they governed as they thought fit, and thereby virtually changed the const.i.tution into an aristocracy or oligarchy. The business of the state was managed by twelve orang-kayas, four of whom were superior to the rest, and among these the maharaja, or governor of the kingdom, was considered as the chief. It does not appear, nor is it probable, that the queen had the power of appointing or removing any of these great officers. No applications were made to the throne but in their presence, nor any public resolution taken but as they determined in council. The great object of their political jealousy seems to have been the pretensions of the king of Johor to the crown, in virtue of repeated intermarriages between the royal families of the two countries, and it may be presumed that the alarms excited from that quarter materially contributed to reconcile them to the female domination. They are accordingly said to have formed an engagement amongst themselves never to pay obedience to a foreign prince, nor to allow their royal mistress to contract any marriage that might eventually lead to such a consequence.* At the same time, by a new treaty with Johor, its king was indirectly excused from the homage to the crown of Achin which had been insisted upon by her predecessors and was the occasion of frequent wars.

(*Footnote. However fanciful it may be thought, I cannot doubt that the example of our Queen Elizabeth, whose character and government were highly popular with the Achinese on account of her triumphant contest with the united powers of Spain and Portugal, had a strong influence in the establishment of this new species of monarchy, and that the example of her sister's marriage with Philip may have contributed to the resolution taken by the n.o.bles. The actions of our ill.u.s.trious queen were a common topic of conversation between the old tyrant and Sir James Lancaster.)

In proportion as the political consequence of the kingdom declined, its history, as noticed by foreigners, becomes obscure. Little is recorded of the transactions of her reign, and it is likely that Achin took no active part in the concerns of neighbouring powers, but suffered the Hollanders, who maintained in general a friendly intercourse with her, to remain in quiet possession of Malacca.

1643.

In 1643 they sent an amba.s.sador to compliment her upon her accession, and at the same time to solicit payment for a quant.i.ty of valuable jewels ordered by the deceased king, but for the amount of which she declined to make herself responsible.

1660.

It is said (but the fact will admit of much doubt) that in 1660 she was inclined to marry one of their countrymen, and would have carried her design into execution had not the East India Company prevented by their authority a connexion that might, as they prudently judged, be productive of embarra.s.sment to their affairs.

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