Sukadana and Banjarmasin (1611-23)
James Lancaster’s voyage of 1601-1603 can be counted a success in that all his ships returned to London with cargoes. Unfortunately, the Dutch were similarly successful, and there was a glut in pepper which lasted several years. In the end, the Company distributed its stocks in the form of a dividend, assuming a price of 2s./lb. This caused considerable discomfort. Twenty years later, the Directors recalled that the price crashed to 14d./lb, ‘every man striving to put off his pepper.’[3]
In 1604, Henry Middleton, commander of the Second Voyage, was instructed to load just two of his four ships at Bantam. The others were to go to the Moluccas in search of,
… some other Comodities that may be of more estimacion & yeald a better proffitt, as rawe silke well Chosed & bought at reasonable prices or such like Comodities wherewith theis partes of Christendome have not beene gluted as with spices.[4]
Of course, spices, if not pepper, were likely to dominate cargoes sourced in Amboyna, Ternate and Tidore, but, in December 1608, John Saris highlighted that something quite different might be obtained on Borneo:
I have many times certified your worships of the trade the Flemings follow to Soocadanna, which place yieldeth great store of diamonds, and of their manner of dealing for them for gold principally which comes from Beniermassen and blue glass beads which the Chinese make and sell 300 for a ps of eight …
Saris persuaded William Keeling, commander of the Third Voyage, to prepare a pinnace for Sukadana. He also left him some beads, as models for sourcing cheaper equivalents in England. Just one piece of preparation remained, for the Company to be set fair:
I do see no reason but we should do as much in this point as the Flemings, only they have a little better instructions from their masters touching all sorts of jewels, than hitherto we have had. Yet notwithstanding I have done my best endeavour to procure experience and have obtained of their jeweller some instructions which may stand us in stead in that place.
The pinnace, evidently, did not reach Sukadana: the town is not mentioned again, until October 1610, when David Middleton visited Bantam. He considered waiting for a junk, which he might send on to ‘Succadania, a place where the Hollanders have made great Voyages,’ before the press of his sickening crew decided him against it. Instead, he instructed Augustine Spalding to put together a voyage. He did so, though not to the Company’s advantage. In May 1612, Peter Floris wrote that, at some point not greatly previous,
… by order of David Middleton, a Factorie was settled at Succadania, and continued by Master Spalding, but it seemeth (as things are carryed) rather to private then publike benefit.
The next mention comes from John Saris, in January 1613. During a halt at Batavia, he sent his deputy ashore with gifts for the harbour master,
… willing [him] not to suffer the Flemminges to search his boate for what he had leave of the king to bring aboard (as they did to Capt. Sharpigh bound for Sacadanna).
The evidence is incomplete, but it is likely that Alexander Sharpeigh was sent by Henry Middleton, commander of the Sixth Voyage, and that he came to grief at his destination or on his journey thither. At any rate, he is not heard of again.[5]
Before Sir Henry’s death at Bantam – they say of a broken heart – in May 1613, he sent to Sukadana a jeweller, Henry Greete, and Sophony Cozucke, a Russian, or ‘Kazak’, by birth. Thus, a disgruntled merchant, Ferdinando Cotton, who wrote to Sir Thomas Smythe from Bantam, in November 1612:
Since our coming hither they have thought it fit to send a Junk for Japan to take the remainders of the 4th and 5th voyage left there in the hands of John Craford in diamonds at Sucadan, and Sir Henry Middleton will send a jeweller and Mr. Sophony to establish a factory there.
He continued,
Mr. Ward hath offered his man, Will. Russell, to have gone to fetch the diamonds and he would not and after he told me how I was your servant and I should go, I told him I would very willingly go but I had got the flux and a fever, and he said I should go, for there was no other here for to go …
(He followed with a litany of complaint against Mr. Ward, Cape Merchant of the Solomon. It came to fisticuffs, after which Mr. Cotton was confined in the bilboes. Quite what Sir Thomas made of it one wonders.)[6]
In early 1614, Captain Robert Larkin was sent to Sukadana in the Dorothy. He found the factory in a beggarly state. A junk had been sent the previous December with cash and goods, but she was redirected to Macassar, where her silks were sold ‘at great rates’ – one suspects for private gain – and her captain died. When she eventually arrived, in May, she had but half of the four thousand rials with which she set out. Larkin’s associate, Thomas Herode, reported that the shortage of funds compelled the factors to turn down offers of a thousand carats of diamonds. Larkin provided them with some of the Dorothy’s cargo (intended for Patani) and 290 rials of liquidity, through the purchase of wax and diamonds. Since the old junk was barely afloat, he bought another, using gold from the estate of Edward Langley, who had died at Bantam shortly before. He then left behind Nathaniel Courthope and Cassarian David, another Russian, to manage things.
Herode said the factors were in good health, but there were dissensions in the ranks. Courthope agreed. In June 1614, he explained to John Jourdain, at Bantam, that Sophony and Greete ‘would not upon any terms stay longer together.’ Perhaps that was why Larkin sent Sophony upriver to Landak ‘with 4 of the blacks, thinking to settle a factory in the said place.’
In December 1613, Cassarian David had criticized Larkin, Courthope, Williams and Herode for ‘purloining the Company’s goods … insolent behaviour, and vanity in wearing buckles of gold in their girdles.’ Drawing London’s attention to the way in which they had ‘suddenly’ amassed wealth of £500 to £600 each, he declared their assets should be seized. He was sent to another subordinate factory, at Sambas.
Courthope’s letter about the Landak initiative is badly damaged, though reference to escape from ‘a miraculous danger’ makes it clear that things did not go well. Herode left a fuller account. Landak invited the English to settle, promising diamonds, gold, and bezoars but,
… by the savageness of the people of the Dyockes, which lie in the river of purpose to take off all the heads of those that they can overcome, our men were put in great danger, for they were assailed with 1,500 men, and they being but 3 in number to resist them, whereof Sophony Cozucke was one; but not being used to powder and shot they had not long continued, but for all their malice they were fain to run ashore and take the woods for their refuge, the Lord so fought for us; but doubting whether they might make any more forces upon them, they returned unto the ship in safety.
When the factory’s other prahu returned from Sambas, they collected a larger force, including nine Englishman, and equipped them with armaments, including three swivel cannon (‘murderers’):
… the force of the whole country was not able to withstand those 9 men, for they would have had us to land our goods and our victuals, or our men to light[en] our prow […] they should haul her up through the fall, which they refused to do, but seeing they could not dispossess them of their prow by that means, they sought to have split her, for in the hauling of her up they had laid a rope on her quarter and let her go head first and she went against the rocks, but God preserved them in this as in the rest, for one of our blacks being stepped ashore was slain and with a hideous noise they let fly their spatas (spears) and another black which was a slave leapt overboard for fear and they think that he was also slain; so in this sort we gave them over, having used nothing but kindness.
Even so, Herode argued it would be a pity to let the opportunity slip. ‘With the charge of 20 men,’ he wrote, ‘it may be obtained in one year.’ Landak might produce three to four thousand carats of diamonds a year, and trade with the rest of Borneo worth sixty to eighty thousand rials. To cap it all, he said, there was an island in the river that could be fortified with ‘small murderers …as good ordnance as any man will wish for such a place.’ His plan was to block the river with trees and control its traffic. Understandably, nothing came of it.[7]
Cassarian David gave London an account of the Sambas factory in a letter to London, of 23 December 1615. The obsequiousness of the style with which he begins, is suggestive of an excess of Christmas spirit:
Your abundant love and fatherly care always so exceedingly showed towards me makes me at this time bold to present your Worships these few lines of thankfulness, being not otherwise able to requite the unspeakableness of your goodness …
Turning to specifics, he says that he stayed from 7 July to 25 November and that there was insufficient trade to recover the expedition’s costs. He then mentions he was,
… three several times in danger of death through the treacherous dealing of the people (and indeed I had died had I been subject to their enticements).[8]
To John Jourdain, he provided extra detail. The king’s people seized his goods by force and twice planned to kill him during a feast, ‘they having provided murderers, as they did the Flemings.’[9]
Being disinclined to risk his life ‘upon no hopes at all,’ he persuaded the king to let him depart under the pretence of fetching more merchandise. He fled under cover of night and reached Sukadana after a journey of some three weeks, in which he had ‘been in danger of being cast away six several times.’ There he found a junk preparing to sail for Bantam with some diamonds. Deciding he had had enough of Sukadana as well as Sambas, he collected some cloth and climbed aboard. He was not alone. Six others joined him, but the wind was adverse, and, in January 1615, they fetched up at Banjarmasin.[10]
The inhabitants were kind and tractable. David decided to remain until the autumn. He sent the junk to Macassar to fetch more goods. It did not return, and so David was left to do his best. He remained, alone, for almost ten months. From the Company he received neither word nor supplies. He sourced a few bezoars, but most of his merchandise was consumed on purchases of food and accommodation, and gifts for the king. Finally, in October, he abandoned the effort and departed for Bantam on a Malayan junk.
Despite his experiences, David was very positive about Banjarmasin. To Jourdain, he even compared it to the land of Canaan. The people were ‘sociable and kind’ and they had plenty to offer by way of trade. The diamonds were as good as those of Landak. (Samples, unfortunately, could only be bought for cash, of which Banjarmasin stood ‘in great want’.) He offered to return on behalf of the Company. Before committing himself, however, he appealed for assistance:
I must now turn to pleading of poverty, having but 15l. a year wages, which is scarce able to maintain me in clothes to the end of the year to do your Worships any credit: which I humbly beseech you to think upon, and your Worships’ humble servant shall be bound to pray for your prosperity to this life’s end.
So, David’s sycophancy was born more from desperation than the spirit of Christmas. One ends feeling pity for a lost soul, short of friends. His advocacy for Banjarmasin did not fall on deaf ears, but he was not associated with it again. A settlement existed in January 1618: a letter from Bantam speaks of it as ‘needless’ and burdened with irrecoverable debts. After October 1620, when a Mr. Cartwright was sent there, the record falls silent. The last sight of David is of his sailing with a fleet for the Bandas, of his capture by the Dutch near Pulo Run, and of his being chained up like a dog on Neira. (Even the Dutch commander’s hogs, he said, had a better time of it.)[11]
Sukadana did not prosper. In early 1616, John Jourdain sent George Ball to take over its management. He did not stay long for, within the year, George Cokayne wrote to him in Bantam, pleading to be released. His principal grievance was Hugh Greete, whom Ball had considered a ‘wicked prattling fool,’ and whom he had almost placed in irons. Cokayne advised,
If you send any jewellers … make them chief and wholly to take the charge upon himself, and not in this idle fashion to trouble and overthrow the business with scandalizing he that hath the charge, with scolding and wrangling, making that which should redound to the Company’s credit a discredit, that others must laugh at our follies …
In June 1617, he complained that, by interposing themselves in the purchasing of diamonds, intermediaries were making the market impossible:
Now to acquaint you with the manner and fashion of this trade, that hath been formerly, and now is, in hugger mugger, among the Chines caterpillars, that when they most abuse us we must speak them fairest; for they handle all, make price with the Landockes as they please, and brings the stones to us at the price they please; so that we do not know the first price set, nor speak with the party that selleth them, but what pleaseth our ambassador, that must be done.
Cokayne explained to Sukadana’s governor that the restrictions were destroying his trade, and he was told that, if the queen were paid an annual ‘custom’, the Chinese and Malays would be deprived of their privileges. Declaring this policy the sine qua non of a profitable trade, Cokayne again begged to be relieved. The back biting had put him at his ‘wit’s end’. He had entreated Cassarian David to take his place, but David had left for Bantam. If only Hugh Greete had left with him,
… for that this place fitteth not for such humours as he hath, that neither dog nor cat can live by him, much less the poor country people … In plain terms, it had been better for the Company they had doubled his wages to have stayed at home than to have kept such a clatter in their business these three or four years as he hath done.
By now, Cokayne was highly suspicious of Greete. He claimed the Company had ‘given him their seal for the sealing up of their diamonds,’ but Cokayne had seen no evidence of it. He therefore personally weighed the diamonds being sent in the shipment with Cassarian David,
… with this condition, that my account and the diamonds be together at the opening in the presence of all the merchants in Bantam, and then to know of Hugh Gritt if the diamonds do agree in number, weight and price as he did seal them.
This was sensible. George Ball prefaced a letter he sent to London, in January 1619, with the remark that its factories would yield a profit, provided they had goods to trade and men of discretion to manage them. He then revealed the ‘dishonest dealings of Hugh Greete, by profession a jeweller but in practice a juggler.’ Greete was sent to England a prisoner. On his arrival, his accounts were examined and some diamonds, which were uncovered, sold. After his death, a grant of £150 out of his estate was used to pay his debts. The remainder was used to fund an alms house.[12]
George Cokayne was succeeded at Sukadana by George Collins. Its troubles continued. In June 1618, President Ball received complaints about Collins’ ‘lewd and prodigal conduct.’ He wasted sixteen to twenty shillings a day in idle expenses, and the queen and governor were frequently disturbed at night ‘by his drunken rioting.’ William Raven disclosed that Collins had boasted of murdering an Englishman at Surat, after which he said that he feared for his life.
At this time, Cokayne passed through Sukadana, on his way to England. The supply of precious stones was encouraging, he wrote, but the factory was ‘in a strange, confused fashion.’ In fact, ‘he never saw a more disordered and shameful business.’ The evidence of the accounts was that Collins had done nothing but ‘filch, spend and consume.’ A third of the factory’s debts were irrecoverable. The Dutch had taken advantage of rumours of English abandonment to claim that they had captured several of their ships. They were buying large quantities of stones. Cokayne obtained a minor victory by securing one of 8½ carats off the queen, but one of sixteen, one of 12½, and one of 10¾ carats were expected shortly from Landak, and the Dutch were gathering the necessary funds. The governor may have promised Cokayne ‘first sight and refusal of all,’ but competition remained intense.
The Company maintained its presence. In January 1622, its council at Batavia wrote to say that, although the country was ‘full of troubles’, they were hopeful of recovering their debts. Their optimism did not last. In April, Edward Pike received news that his station was being closed. He urged Batavia to keep the faith, ‘never yet beinge proufe made of it, by the English through want of Supplies and good following.’ This became his epitaph. Shortly afterwards, the Mataram sultan on Java launched a strike and destroyed the city. Batavia reported that Pike ‘was killed by an explosion of gunpowder; and they fear they have lost upwards of 3,000 ryals, and the Dutch 20,000 ryals.’ The Dutch abandoned the city. The last we hear of it, from the Company’s perspective, is in February 1623, when we are told the Sukadana debts were ‘desperate, the Queen being taken by the Materan’s people, and the natives fled.’[13]
The First Days of British Bencoolen (1684-1688)
The closure of Sukadana coincided with that of several other of the Company’s regional establishments. Specifically, to free itself of the burdensome Dutch, it abandoned Batavia, in 1624, and returned to Bantam. This served as its headquarters until 1682, when the Dutch forced the English out. After a stay of eighty years, the Company renounced Java and turned for its pepper to Sumatra’s south-west coast. Yet, the establishment at ‘Fort York’ faced multiple challenges. The sultan of Bantam claimed much of the neighbouring territory, as did the remnant of the state of Menangkabo. At Manduta, at Indrapura, and other ports, chieftains were at daggers drawn with their neighbours. In addition, the Dutch were ever-present, the climate was pestilential, and the yield on pepper barely sufficient to cover costs, let alone pickings from private trade. Bencoolen was not a popular destination.
The propensity to querulousness of Bencoolen’s Britons was displayed from the moment of their arrival. Thus, a protest sent to Fort St. George, in May 1685, by Thomas Fiffe (Goffe) and Jonathon Packseraugh (Rackstraugh). The twelve charges levelled against Captain John Spencer of the Amoy Merchant include the following:
… 6th. After Mr Jardin was gone to Indipoora, Capt. Bybee and Mr Goddard dead, Senior Facinta Ribeira Sick at Syllibar and our Ship Riding in Bencoolen Road, his omitting to Signe the Invoyce of the Honourable Company’s goods, moneys, and debts, taking immediately the Invoyce into his owne Custody not permitting any to have a Coppy besid’s himselfe soe that he may make his accounts as he pleases …
… 8th. After Mr Goddard’s death his Rashness, Passion, & Indiscretion in the management of the Honourable Company’s affairs, not minding in whose presence he spoake, but Railing against the King calling him foole, ass, knave, or things to that Effect, donning him with Severity without Policy, Shoeing his Prejudice in both Looks and actions, till the King & Capt. Spencer became profest Enimies; Soe that thee King Sought all Opertunities to injure us and Poyson him, as his workeing and Transactions plainly shew’d …[14]
Accompanied by the sloop Rochester, the Amoy Merchant visited the coast between October 1684 and February 1685, with the merchants Clement du Jardin, John Goddard and Francisco de Britto. John Bibey was captain. After successful negotiations at Silebar (where de Britto was left mortally sick), du Jardin came to an agreement for the supply of pepper at Bencoolen with Orangkay Lelley. Lelley, was an intermediary of the rajas, described as ‘a Nimble blade in business.’ Afterwards, Du Jardin took the Rochester up the coast to Indrapura. Bibey and Goddard died, leaving Spencer in command.[15]
It was the challenge of obtaining payment that set him aflame. Putting his frustrations onto paper, he claimed the Raja of Bencoolen owed 1,200 rials of eight, the Raja of Silebar 150, and Orangkay Lelly himself ‘eight hundred and odd Dollars.’ The chiefs promised they had sufficient pepper to pay in two to three days, but the days passed, and, in the place of payment, they asked for more cloth ‘upon trust’. Finally, the Amoy Merchant’s officers were persuaded that, if they put some of their cloth on shore, the raja would send them their money. Later, they wrote that,
… we having allmost all our pepper aboard expecting to Cleare ourselves of this place in 2 dayes, the King of Bencooleen set our house on fire, and had much to doe to save our lives with that little goods wee did save, and att Intrim had 3 prowes laden in the River with pepper Intending for the ship the next morning, but cannot pass one great danger wee went through, with our long boat being deep laden with pepper and having put all the Cloath &c. goods of the Honourable Company into her, when wee put from the shoar, wee found her soe deep that wee were forcst to Leave most of the pepper overboard …
Having clambered aboard the Amoy Merchant, they lingered for two days (one of them being the sabbath). Spencer then returned to the beach to assess what had become of their remaining merchandise. He decided the best method of obtaining redress was to seize two native prahus, offload their crews, and unload their cargo. This done, he returned to Bencoolen:
[He] carryed one of their men ashore along with him and sent him to the King, desiring that he might treat with him and likewise sent his Linguister (interpreter) to Orangkey and he came Immediately, but the King did not the Capt. askt orankey what became of the Honourable Company’s goods, that was left on shore after the Dreadfull fire, he made Answer that the King had seized upon them & said they were his & that belonged to him.
At this point of impasse, the Amoy Merchant’s officers signed off their ‘Entreaty’ to the Madras Council, offering to do their best to obtain restitution but suggesting that, with insufficient crew and two of their fellows in the raja’s custody, there was little hope of final delivery.
Eventually, however, Spencer obtained a cargo, despite the antagonism. He claimed that the switch in the monsoon and the weakness of his crew meant that he had to leave du Jardin, who was ‘dangerously sick’, at Indrapura. In April 1685, he reached Madras with ‘A Bond of Oramkey Lillyme for $9161/4 and a Cowl (lease), from Lelaw Maha Raja Oramkey of Sillibar to the Governor & Councill of Fort St. George.’[16]
His arrival coincided with preparations for a second expedition under Ralph Ord. Ord had recently returned from Achin, bringing with him some princes from Priaman, who, bridling under the strictures of the Dutch, had invited the English to establish a settlement. Madras considered this a splendid opportunity, and London agreed with them. Mindful of the Company’s ejection from Bantam, in 1682, they desired that the factory at Priaman should be larger even than Fort St. George, and they proposed a dockyard and a fort accommodating a garrison of five hundred.[17]
Ord departed Madras with the princes, in May 1685. He reached Bencoolen, two months later, and discovered that the Dutch had already taken Silebar. Fearing the same at Priaman (it succumbed that month), he concluded it ‘necessary not to foregoe this place.’ The princes gave him encouragement, with an earnestness that caused Ord to suspect they might have over-promised. An agreement was signed with Bencoolen’s raja, and Ord sailed to Indrapura, leaving Benjamin Bloom and Joshua Charlton to manage affairs.
When, in October, Ord and Thomas Stubbs wrote to Fort St. George from Indrapura to explain their actions, they knew their judgement would be challenged. They marshalled their arguments with care, starting with the claim that they had arrived ‘in the Criticall minute.’ Priaman, they admitted, was the greatest market on the coast for the ‘vent of goods,’ but Indrapura and Bencoolen, and the tract of land between them, was where the pepper grew. This made it,
… fittest in our Opinions for the Honourable Company’s Designe for it is not probable the Dutch will suffer any Pepper to pass them if wee are not where it growes.
The pepper, they continued, was cheaper at Bencoolen and the harbour tranquil. Even so, there were equivocations to their optimism. First, an admission that many had fallen sick, though they attributed this to ‘their want of lodging’ rather than to the climate, which they considered ‘very healthfull’. Second, a reference to a need to fortify:
… wee Landed 18 Gunns for the security of the place and have left the Cheif strength of our Garrison there, tho att first wee Intended not soe many, but hearing of the Dutch there great Threatning our Expulsion wee left it the stronger untill wee should see further Occasion to withdraw them.
Third, a lack of local provisions, ‘for these People plant noe more than Just suffices their own Expence.’ Fourth, the difficulty of collecting payment on the sale of cloth (‘Orankey Lelly denys his Debt to the Honourable Company to be above 400 Dollars …’).[18]
Things got worse before they got better. In their next letter, Bloom and Charlton admitted that a great many men had perished, and that, happy though they were to have secured a footing, it was ‘but slippery’. For two or three days, the pepper had come ‘soe pouring’ upon them that they thought the Bencoolens better than their word. Then Ramadan was upon them, and they were told to expect nothing for a month to six weeks. When the supply of pepper did not recover, it transpired that it had been stopped by an up-country chief. Formerly he had served the Dutch, and he had to be persuaded to change allegiance. Then the season intervened. The trees had just blossomed, and the pepper was green. They would have to wait until November or December for the next harvest. Finally, as the stock of goods and cash became depleted, a Company ship arrived with the warning that an army was readying at Batavia, with three ships, one of them armed with sixty guns. The Dutch were sailing to Silebar, to demand satisfaction for their disobedience, and they would reach Bencoolen in six weeks.
All of this made the difficulties Bloom and Charlton were experiencing, and the cost of fortifying their position, particularly galling. They employed a number of Malays, yet, they wrote,
Notwithstanding our own people that have alsoe workt dayly thereon the worke is very backward, for ever since Wee have been here wee can scarse say wee have had Eight dayes togeather without Rain, which has fallen in soe violent A manner, that it hath soe much hindred our designe, that in four months time noe more then one Bastion or Bulworke, to the seaward is in any forwardness, which long ere this might have been finisht but the raines are soe great here that in one night they have lay’d even with the Ground that which had cost A fortnights building …
Realising that, all this while, they had been ‘whashing A Blackmoore white,’ they resolved to palisade themselves in. They tried turfing (but the rain washed the turf away) and bricks (the soil would not ‘abide’ the fire), but this was the best they could do. Meanwhile, as they awaited money, supplies and, ultimately, rescue, they wrote,
Wee are by sickness all become Uncapable of helping one Another, and of the great number of people that came over not above 30 men well of them that Mr Ord left here … [Of] the English souldiers are dead here 11 & of the Portequeeze not above 4, of the Black workmen not Above fiveteen that is capable of working. are dead about 40 and dayly die, for hee that falls, it is hard for him to rise … [Such] have been our straites wee many times have fasted; the sick lye neglected, some cry for Remedies, but none to be had; those that could Eat, have none to cook them Victualls, soe that I may say the one Dies for Hunger, & the other for Remedies, soe that now we have not living Enough to bury the Dead and if one is sick the other will not watch, for hee sayes better that one in two dies, soe that people dies and noe notice Taken thereof.[19]
Unsurprisingly, they considered surrender. The point came when the Raja of Bencoolen and the neighbouring princes were summoned to Bantam to atone for the offence of admitting the English. (They did not go but, rather than support the new settlement, which was getting weaker by the day, they made themselves scarce, to wait upon events.) At this juncture, we are told,
Mr Benjamin Bloome Summond the Souldeirs to appeare, who acquainting them with the intentions of the Javas askt them whether they would oppose the ennemy when he come to displace us, who unanimously declared that they were uncapable to enconter Such a number as might reasonably be expected, not being above 11 men able to hold a musquett. Alsoe finding the Capt. &c. as unwilling to encourage as the Souldeirs were to fight, it was therefore thought convenient for secureing the Right Honourable Company’s estate to come to capitulations …
In the event, except for the unwilling captain, who retired to his ship and died, the English held on, because the terms under which they offered to submit were refused. Fortunately, the failure of the raja and princes to support Bantam’s sultan ‘broke the Necke of [the Javans’] designe.’ As their numbers were also being whittled away by disease, they were unwilling to attack without the Dutch and, for one reason or another, the Dutch were unwilling to support them.[20]
Ralph Ord and his family were killed in a shipwreck at Indrapura, in mid-1686. At the time, Fort St. George was told that Bencoolen’s fort was ‘indifferently raised’, but that relations with the natives were good and there was ‘no prejudice from the Dutch, or the King of Bantam.’ By mid-1687, Bloom was writing that Bencoolen’s affairs were going ‘more currantly’. Jenapatwan, a powerful king from the interior, was providing assistance. None but Bloom remained of the council, and most of the garrison and the settlers were sick or dead, but the flow of pepper had improved. Bloom wrote that he had ‘greater hopes of a prosperous Settlement then ever.’
Responding to these reports, Madras maintained its view that not settling at Priaman had been an ‘unhappy error’, but it re-directed most of its criticism at Ord’s second in command. They gave Bencoolen all the support they could, and bolstered relations with King Jenapatwan. Although finding volunteers to staff the disease-prone settlement remained a challenge, by mid-1688, it had turned the corner.[21]
Bencoolen under Joseph Collet (1712-1716)
Bencoolen’s third governor, James Sowdon, lasted just a year. William Dampier, who encountered him in 1690, believed his ignorance made him ‘fitter to bee a Book-keeper than Governour of a Fort.’ Considering his cruel and rash treatment of his subordinates, and of the Malay population, he wrote, ‘I soon grew weary of him, not thinking myself safe, indeed, under a Man whose Humours were so brutish and barbarous.’ Alexander Hamilton agreed. Sowdon, he wrote, was renowned for his ‘intemperate drinking’ and for the ‘sanguinary’ way in which he dispensed justice. In July 1691, he was recalled to Fort St. George because he ‘managed the Affaires very badly and by his imprudence brought the place into great troubles.’[22]
In 1712, there came to Bencoolen a governor of a different stamp. A future president of Fort St. George, John Collet was then but a widower and a bankrupt. However, as the scion of a family of reputed merchants, and a non-conformist who intended to honour the press of his obligations, he had willing supporters at the Company. He departed England for a term of at least four years as Bencoolen’s deputy governor, at a salary of £100 a year, plus £100 as commander of the garrison, and a possible £100 bonus if he made a success of it. If he survived more than two to three years, there was a chance he might rise into the upper echelons of the Madras establishment and recover his fortune.
The posting did not start well. On the outward journey, his ship was impounded by the French, who seized Rio de Janeiro fourteen days after his arrival there. To continue, he was obliged to pay £3,500, on the Company’s account, for the release of the ship and its cargo, and to leave behind his son and Mr. Edmund Bunting as ‘hostages for performance.’ To a correspondent, he confessed that he had been unable to secure the treasure aboard the ship,
… all of which the french have taken … excepting one Chest of the Company’s and your small Chest consigned to Mr. Fink, both which were Stolen by some of the Ship’s Company who ran away with them and the Pinnace.[23]
Yet he was not despondent. As he prepared to leave for the Cape, he wrote,
I have but one pair of shoes and one of them has a hole almost thro’. I have lain whole nights in an open boat, and that once when it rained without intermission. I have been without a bed in my Cloaths a fortnight together and not seen a bitt of bread in a week. I have been wet thro’ for 2 days together, and yet I thank God myself and son enjoy as perfect health as ever … As to religion I have learnt an entire resignation and a firm confidence in that Goodness which I am sure will never fail me.
From the Cape, he wrote to his son in Rio with news, importuning him to trust in providence and remain true to the religious life:
I have discharged Mr. Taylor my Chief Mate and entertained another used to the India trade. Mr. Fink leapt overboard (as we suppose) the day we left Brasill, having never seen him since. Captain Orrill has bene stab’d here by one Mr. Rowland Tryon, a young Gent: in the Tankervill homeward bound, who being in drink darted his sword which striking first on the Table hit Capt. Orrill under the left Pap and piercing the pleura enter’d into the Cavity of his Body. The surgeons tho’t the wound mortall; but he is now in a hopeful way of recovery …
It will be in my power to make you speedy remittances from India for your ransom, and you need not lose your time in France, where you will find opportunity’s of Improvement in all the useful parts of Education … Avoid the Temptations to evill as much as possible, and resist them obstinately when you cannot avoid them.
To his brother-in-law, John Bedwell, he sent a memorial of things to be sent to his destination:
4 Hatts with Gold Edging. 2 Do. Plain. 12 pair Spannish leather Shoes. 1 light full bottom Wigg about £12 value … A very good fowling peice and Bayonett … 10 Gallons of Elder Vinagar …Common Prayer octavo. Tate’s psalms, with the Supplement … A Box of Good Virginia Tobacco. If any wine some fine Canary or the best red, but that as the account will hold out.[24]
By 1 September, he was in place at Fort York and explaining to Sultan Guillamott of Manduta that, unlike his predecessors, he was unwilling to get embroiled in his quarrels, and that,
… when both Sides are weary of warr you will have Peace restored and then I shall be ready to give you Dollars for your Pepper, which is all the Business I will have to do with any of the Natives.[25]
To his sister he wrote,
The Extent of my Government is about Three Hundred Miles in Length. Here are Six or Seven Garrisons under my Command. This and Bantall have Forty or Fifty Guns each. Severall Kings profess themselves to be our Subjects … I treat them as a Wise man shou’d his Wife, am very complaisant in trifles, but immoveable in matters of importance.
He explained that, although the fort stood in a swamp, ‘which can’t be very wholesome,’ the country was vastly different from the accounts usually given of it in England. Nor were the Malays brutes as they had been presented: they could distinguish between ‘Justice and Villainy, Kindness and Cruelty.’ It was a shame the same could not be said for the members of his own establishment: better in fact to ‘draw a Curtain over their past Action than relate the particulars.’ He put them on a short leash and reduced their perquisites by three-quarters. This done, he said there was every reason to be optimistic of answering the Company’s expectations.
As to the ladies, Collet wrote to explain that,
… There are but 5 White things in Petticoats upon the Coast, one I am sending away with her husband, tho’ she petitions to stay behind in the Quality of Nurse alias Bawd. Another is sent away by her husband with my consent because she is so free of Tongue, Tale and Hands that the poor man can’t live in quiet with her. A third is non-compos and actually confin’d to a Dark room and straw. A 4th is really a good Wife and a modest Woman but the malitious say, that her person never provok’d any one yet to ask her the question. The 5th is a young Widow suppos’d to have a little money, of the rt. St. Helena breed, as well shap’d as a Madagascar Cow, – and so much for Women.[26]
The last, the eighteen-year-old widow of a council member, was remarried within a few days of these words being written, for, whilst her charms ‘were too terrible for description, she had some in her pocket.’ As for the native women, given that a man who ventured on them seldom failed to get ‘Bencoolen fever’, Collet explained it required ‘a very little share of Virtue’ to concentrate on more important business at hand.
Collet’s great gamble began to pay off. To his daughters he sent gifts: to one a black girl named Flora, ‘to employ or dispose of as you pleas,’ to another a snuff box in gold and jasper, to all lengths of chintz and muslin. In May 1713, he informed Fort St. George that, if he had another vessel on hand, he could dispatch it fully laden without demurrage. This was despite the inefficiency of the factory at Bantal, upon which he depended for supplies.
The person responsible for Bantal was Mr. Hunter. About him Collet wrote,
Drinking all night and that constantly is no very good Preparation for a Prudent Administration in the day, especially by the Person at the head of Affairs. When a Chief is warm enough to draw upon his 2nd of Councill and cutt him over his Face, and his 3rd of Councill can wish their Superiours, vizt. the Deputy Governor and Councill all Dragged at the Abingdon’s stern from Bencoolen to Bantall, your Hon’r knows what is to be expected from their management.[27]
There followed a change of personnel, and a change of strategy. Wars between the chieftains were so frequent that they interrupted trade. For its sake, Collet felt obliged to intervene. In September 1713, he wrote to Hunter’s replacement, Henry White, regretting that his neighbours were troublesome, especially as Fort York was unable to assist in calling them to account. (An ‘unusual malignity’ had removed Father Milton, Mr. Hitchcock, Mr. Green and Mrs. Saunders. Mr. Connell was dying, and Doctor Pichier was in danger.) He agreed that a force of thirty Europeans and a hundred Bugis was sufficient for the purpose and that, if they were obtainable, White should take possession of Manduta and Moco Moco. If he advocated caution, it was less because of his principles than because of the season, ‘it being the same that Mr. Ettrick play’d the Hero in and lost by rains and bad weather his little Army without fighting.’
The necessary force was assembled and, by February 1714, the rajas of Moco Moco and Manduta had become ‘undone men, who when abandon’d by the Small Remainder of their vagabond Friends, must either fly their Country or lose their heads.’ Sultan Guillamott, who had been deposed between times, was reinstated, and Collet assured Madras that Bantal and its settlements would soon be profitable ‘unless they shou’d happen to fall under such Management as formerly.’
As the fortunes of Fort York rose, Collet replaced its crumbling infrastructure. In October 1712, he had advised the Madras governor, Edward Harrison, that the cost of maintaining its buildings, in the seven years to come, would equal that of starting afresh. From August 1714, his letters were addressed from ‘Marlborough Fort’, named after ‘the most illustrious name in history.’ It was a substantial construction two miles from the old, which, if not quite ‘the strongest Fortification in India,’ remained in use a century later, when Thomas Raffles assumed residence.[28]
Disease remained the pre-eminent problem, and Collet remarkably sanguine in the face of it. In October 1713, he informed his mother that, as the result of pestilence, ‘We have bury’d a third part of our People and the Natives have far’d no better.’ In early December, he wrote, ‘we have buried about 15 Persons in a month past’; in February 1714, that ‘the Country is near one half dispeopled.’ Despite all this, in January 1715, he declared that, although Fort York was not ‘so healthful as Highgate or Hamstead,’ it was ‘much healthier than many parts of England I have seen.’
Evidently, Collet had a remarkably strong constitution. Otherwise, it was greatly to be pitied that the mosquitoes were not more selective. Mr. Connell, noted for his capacity for business and industry, expired in September 1713. Henry White, whom Collet commended to his daughter, and whom he sometimes addressed as ‘son’, died in late 1715, or early 1716. John, for whom he entertained such hopes, perished within a year of his arrival.
Few were this worthy. A friend, Rev. Nathaniel Hodges was severely reprimanded for recommending Mr. Puddephat, ‘a notorious drunkard, a profane Swearer, and a Scandalous defamer.’ He had many faults, few virtues to balance them, could write neither English nor sense, and was therefore ‘useless and troublesome.’ Sergeant Eaton, sent from Madras with reinforcements for the garrison, didn’t even manage to step ashore. Before he could do so, he was sent to England, with Corporal Kennedy and William Bush, for mutiny, piracy and murder committed on the outward voyage.
Raising moral standards, then, was as hard as increasing profits. Yet Collet became increasingly confident. His personal circumstances rapidly improved. In June 1714, he wrote to Edward Harrison, summarising his position:
When I left England I stood oblig’d in Conscience (tho’ freed by Law) for about £3,000. My Friends advanc’d me about £1,000 more for my Outsett, which was all lost by my Capture. The proffits of my Government do not more than defray my Expenses here, and maintain my Family in England. By Trade I make about £2,000 per annum, so that in my four Years I may hope (God granting life and Success), to gain about £8,000 pounds. One half of this is devoted as above, and I should be willing to send half the Remainder home as a small provision for my four daughters in case of my death. My remaining Stock at this Calculation will be about £2,000.[29]
Although he had been promised preferment in Madras at the end of his contract, shouldn’t he contemplate staying in Bencoolen?
Harrison’s advice was firm, and wise. The climate was unhealthy, and Collet’s strength might not hold. In four years, he had risen in the seniority of the Madras Council to third. Harrison himself was minded for retirement, and his deputy was in a dangerous state of health. Collet could rely on Harrison’s recommendation, and the companionship, the dining and the perquisites of trade were far better at Madras than at Bencoolen. In July 1716, Collet crossed to India.
Bencoolen after Collet (1716-1760)
In the event, the improvement in Fort Marlborough’s fortunes was less enduring than he would have wished. Costs had risen, and the volume of pepper was falling. The view of the officers on the ground was that the people were indolent and should be compelled to plant more. The Directors were more inclined to conciliation and encouragement. The core problem was that the price the Company were willing to pay for pepper was too low. The problem endured for the rest of the century.[30]
Relations with the local tribes deteriorated and, taking the liquor bill as a guide, it is not hard to imagine why. In July 1716, the nineteen servants at the Company’s table consumed,
Seventy four dozen and a half of wine, of which 8 dozen and 5 were double bottles, and 50 dozen 5 single bottles of French Claret, 24 dozen and a half of Burton Ale and pale beer, 2 pipes and 42 gallons of Madera wine, 6 Flasks of Shyrash, 274 bottles of Toddy, 3 Leaguers and 3 quarters of Batavia Arrack, and 164 Gallons of Goa…
The outlay ($5,300), the Directors complained, was greater than ‘the Prime Cost of all the Pepper you sent Us in above 17 months time.’
[They wrote] We will never again permit such extravagant squandering away of Our Money … It is a wonder to Us that any of you live 6 Months to an end, or that there are not more Quarrellings & Duellings among you, if half the Liquors [the Steward] charges were guzled down … We will not have Our wine spent but at Meals, if You will have it at other times, pay for it yourselves.
Such was the cost of china and glass, that London assumed breakages were a disguised perquisite of the steward’s, or that ‘the People were drunk & threw them at one anothers heads.’ They despatched a supply of pewter and warned that, if more were required, they were to be informed, ‘that We may furnish you at best hand, and not pay double or near it for the same sorts bought of the Captains or others.’
Within six months of his departure, Collet’s successor at Bencoolen was implicated in a fraud and sent to England to answer for it. His successor, Richard Farmer, lasted only a little longer. An investigation revealed he had been guilty,
… of barbarous treatment to his Fellow Servants, of oppression of the Natives, and of Conspiracy with Elisha Ellill deceas’d and James Morrice against the Government of Fort St. George.[31]
Things went from bad to worse. Although the Madras records are silent on the matter, there is an entry in the file for 18 August 1719 at Fort William (Calcutta), which demonstrates graphically the pitch to which relations with the natives had fallen:
… on the 27th March last the whole English Settlement at Bencoolen was cut off & the people expell’d by the Mallays assisted by our own bugguz (Bugis) Soldiers all the buildings were burnt about thirty of the English of whom eight were covenant Servants were killd or drownd in getting off, the rest with the Deputy Governour got on board ship Metchlapatam then in the Road having sent the Women and Children before with the Hon’ble Companys Books & Treasure; they proceeded to Batavia & from thence by the assistance of the Dutch to Negapatam & arrivd with them the 5th of July, they know not what is become of Moco Moco a Settlement to which Bantall Factory was removed but purpose to send a Europe Ship thither as speedily as they can.
What became of Moco Moco is apparent from a letter sent from there to Fort St. George, which was diverted to Fort William on board a Dutch coastal ship:
To the Governour or Cheif of any English Factory or Commander of a Ship.
SIR
The occasion of this is to Signify the great Importance of the accompanying Packett directed to Fort St. George to acquaint the President & Governour of the bad state of Affairs on the West Coast of Sumatria Fort Marlborough being quite destroyd accidentally by fire the Deputy Governour his Councill & all the Europeans left the place about two months past and embarkd on board ship Metchlapatam whom we have not heard of since, So that we are left destitute standing in need of everything for support and what is worse the Natives are at Warr besides but little Gunpowder to defend this ffactory. Pray expediate the packett that some Relief may be sent us having no Ship or any other Vessell therefore we must all of necessity perish if not succourd in a little time. I salute you with my Respects & am Sir
Your distressed Brother
William Ballett
Moco Moco Factory
June the 4th 1719 [32]
The English struggled on until 1760, when they ‘shamelessly’ surrendered to a French flotilla. From the perspective of defending the India trade, this proved a point. In 1762, they returned though, for several years, efforts at rebuilding the settlement were half-hearted, as a search was made for an alternative site. Consideration was given to Pangpang Bay, between Java and Bali and, in the 1770s, to Achin and Kedah, at the northern end of the Malacca Strait. Nothing came of either, however, and the English remained at Bencoolen, until 1824. In the long run, Fort Marlborough’s location told against it. Disease proved to be endemic and Ralph Ord over-sanguine about the usefulness of the harbour. Bencoolen was too far removed from the trade routes and too exposed to the choke point of the Sunda Strait to be properly viable.[33]
Pulo Condore and Banjarmasin (1700-1707)
Ten years before Collet’s arrival at Fort York, the Company assayed a new station on the route to Cathay. At the suggestion of Allen Catchpoole, its agent for China, it tried Pulo Condore, one of a group of islands off Vietnam’s southern tip. Three years later, he and all but two of the establishment were slaughtered in the ‘massacre’ of 1705.
Pulo Condore was visited by William Dampier, in 1687. Its location, he decided, was ‘very commodious’, lying between Japan, China, Manila, and the eastern end of the South-east Asian continent. Its harbour, which lent itself to fortification, offered a refuge to ships in time of need, and a supply of masts, yards, pitch and tar. Alexander Hamilton was less sanguine. In his view, Catchpoole ‘made a bad choice of a Place for a Colony, that Island producing nothing but Wood, Water and Fish for catching.’ Neither of its harbours, he said, were good, and the rocky bottom made them ‘dangerous for losing Anchors and Cables.’
He believed that the massacre arose because Catchpoole refused to release the Macassar lascars of the garrison, when their period of service ended:
Those Eastern Desperadoes are very faithful where Contracts and Covenants are duly observed when made with them, but in Defailiance, they are revengeful and cruel. Mr. Ketchpole … still entrusted them with the Guard of his own Person and the Garison, and they taking the Opportunity of the Night, when all the English were in their Beds, who lodged in the Fort, they inhumanely murdered them all.
There was some Noise made by those who were awake, which a few who lodged without the Fort, hearing, took the Alarm, and ran to the Sea Side, where kind Providence directed them to a Boat ready fitted with Oars and Sails, which they imbarked in, and put off from the Shore, and were not a Stone’s-throw off, till the bloody Villains on the Shore were in Quest of them. So those in the Boat, with much Fatigue, Hunger, and Thirst in sailing, and rowing above 100 Leagues, got to some Place of the King of Johore’s Dominions …
It is possible, however, that the English paid the price of courting relations with the Cambodian rivals of the Nguyen rulers of southern Vietnam (Cochin China). On the instructions of Fort St. George, in 1695-6, Thomas Bowyear had endeavoured to open a factory in Nguyen territory at Fai-Fo (Hoi An). He was unsuccessful but he had been approached by a Cambodian ambassador, who promised trade free from restrictions or difficulty. On his return to Madras, Bowyear suggested reviving the settlement which the Company had suspended, in 1656. He even flagged his interest to the Nguyens, by requesting from them a licence for two ships, to trade with ‘Champa, Camboja and Siam.’ James Pound, who survived the massacre, wrote that, in January 1705, the King of Cambodia sent an official to Catchpoole, inviting the English to trade and settle in his country. James Cunningham was another survivor of the debacle. He was arrested and taken to Baria (Dong Nai), where he was charged with three offences:
First that the English when they arrived at Pulo Condore said they would stay there whither the King of Cochin China would or not. Secondly that there was no English sent along with the Present to Court last yeare. Thirdly wee sent a ship to Cambogia and did not acquaint the Govener of Barea therewith.
Cunningham wrote that, during a second interview, the governor asked, ‘nothing of moment but why I sent two Englishmen to Cambogia, and how much money I had given them two.’
It is possible, therefore, that the English had asked for trouble. The Nguyens knew the English were well-equipped militarily, as one of the conditions of their settling was that they should be on hand to fight piracy. The thought of them allying themselves with the Cambodians was guaranteed not to raise them in Nguyen affections. At the time of the massacre, there were thirty-eight Cambodian envoys at the settlement. They sided with the English, and they were annihilated with them.[34]
After his release, Cunningham was appointed Chief Factor in Banjarmasin, Cassanian David’s entrepôt on Borneo. In April 1700, this had been reopened for its pepper and as a port for trading with the Chinese. Sylvanus Landen, the president of its council, told Alexander Hamilton that it was much less suited to settlement than the nearby island of Pulo Laut. The island offered ‘a most excellent Harbour’ and higher ground near the shore. At Banjarmasin, the factory was built on ‘Flotes of great Trees tied together, and made fast to Trees growing in the Water.’ Sickness was a constant: two thirds of visiting crews fell sick, and many died.
As in Pulo Condore, the English employed Macassars as soldiers. They may have been a precipitate cause for four months of hostilities, which occurred in 1701. The Macassars were hated by the Banjarese, whose resentment may have increased when the floating storehouse was relocated away from their centre of population, at Tatas. During the conflict, both Banjarmasin and Tatas were destroyed. Landen withdrew to Batavia, where he was replaced on the council by Thomas Tooley. For a period, relations with the Banjarese became more cordial. Then, in January 1705, Thomas Joyner became acting chief.[35]
According to William Griffith, he encouraged disorder by the Macassar soldiers, intercepted Chinese junks as they passed the factory, and offered protection to a pirate with vague claims to the Banjarese throne. Nor was he shy when it came to women: his agents procured them for his harem. Relations deteriorated, and the flow of pepper diminished.
In August 1705, Joyner was replaced by Henry Barre. Trade revived. By 1706, the atmosphere had improved sufficiently for the sultan to approve the construction of a fort on Tomborneo, an island in the river. In March 1707, Barre suddenly died, of poisoning. Joyner assumed his former position. The seizure of Chinese and Banjarese cargoes, and the levying of arbitrary duties, resumed. When Cunningham arrived, in June 1707, the situation was extremely fragile.
Unfortunately, according to Alexander Hamilton,
[Cunningham] was bred a Surgeon, and had turn’d Virtuoso, would spend whole Days in contemplating on the Nature, Shape, and Qualities of a Butterfly or a Shellfish, and left the Management of the Company’s Business to others as little capable as himself, so every one but he was Master.
The fort was half-finished, so the Banjarese had limited time to act. The English had become so domineering that, on one occasion, they ransacked one of the sultan’s boats, as it carried a ‘lady of quality’ down the river. On another, they ‘fir’d several of their great Shot at the Queen-Mother, which frighten’d her so, that ever since she continu’d almost distracted.’ Actions like these,
… so provoked the King, that he sware Revenge, and accordingly gathered an Army, and shipt it on large Praws, to execute his Rage on the Factory and Shipping that lay on the River.
The English took to their ships, where they were better able to defend themselves against the assault of three thousand natives, in a hundred prahus:
The English had made fast Nettings from the Mizon to the fore Shrouds, about two Fathoms high above the Gunnel, that they might not be too suddenly boarded by the Enemy, and to have the Opportunity of using their Blunderbusses and Lances, before the enemy could get on their Decks. As soon as they in their Ships saw the Fleet approaching near them, they plied their Guns with double Round and Partridge, and made a great Carnage, but all did not deter the Assailants from boarding, who when they got as high as the Gun-wall or Gunnel, were at a Loss how to get over the Netting, and so were killed with great Ease. Some got in at the head Door of one of the Ships, and killed some English in the Fore-castle, but they were soon destroyed …[36]
Hamilton was told that, in the hottest part of the engagement, some 1,500 Banjarese were killed, with many more wounded. The English were driven out but, in 1737, they returned. Sultan Tamjeed Allah hoped for presents and the revenue which the earlier trade had engendered. He also sought a guard-ship, for protection against pirates and the Dutch. The English remained until 1747. Relations were difficult, but trade flourished for a time, until the Dutch got the upper hand. At no stage, were they suffered to build another fort. The Banjarese attack of 1707 was motivated by self-preservation. For a hundred years, they had been asserting their freedom from Javanese control. As a bulwark against their influence, they had welcomed the Dutch, then the English, but the fortification of Tomborneo upset the balance of power. Barre’s idea that ‘nothing but power will make the Place beneficial’ was a recipe for self-destruction.[37]
The British and Balambangan (1761-
We now come to the climactic initiative in this sequence. It followed the discovery, by Commodore Wilson of the Indiaman Pitt, of the outer passage to China. Wilson had arrived at Madras, in September 1758, too late to continue his voyage through the South China Sea, so Alexander Dalrymple, Assistant Secretary at Fort St. George, advised him to attempt the route followed by John Saris to Japan, in 1613. This meant sailing with the north-west wind through the Moluccas, to the east of the Philippines, and then steering for Canton between Luzon and Formosa.
By extending the China trade to all four seasons of the year, the outer passage opened a new chapter in the Company’s history. More important for this story, however, was Wilson’s report on the islands which he encountered. Convinced that trade would benefit from an entrepôt beyond the reach of the Canton Hoppo, Dalrymple asked for sanction to explore them and recommend something suitable. Governor Pigot agreed. The focus of Dalrymple’s attention was the Sulu Sea, which lay to the north-east of Borneo, astride the route to China but between the Spanish-controlled Philippines and the Dutch Indies.
Taking the schooner Cuddalore, Dalrymple departed Madras in 1759. He travelled to Malacca, Macau, the Babuyan Islands north of Luzon, the coast of Cochin China, Hainan, Mindanao and Manila Bay. On 28 January 1761, he concluded a treaty of friendship and commerce with Bantilan Mu’izzud Din, the acting Sultan of Sulu. This granted the English a place suitable for a factory, from which other Europeans were excluded. In November, it was confirmed by the deposed sultan, Alimud Din I, a guest of the Spanish in Manila, which Dalrymple visited. The English undertook to assist Sulu if it were attacked.[38]
Dalrymple had read in Spanish histories of an earlier flourishing trade in Sulu. Duties imposed by the Sultan, and priority given by the Spanish to their evangelical mission and to a campaign against piracy, had since caused it to languish. He believed that a permanent emporium would catalyse a revival. The location was ideal. First, Sulu was at the centre of a circle, with a radius of one thousand miles, whose circumference touched on Japan and Korea to the north, India to the west, and New Holland to the south. Second, it stood at the only point in the line of islands, Borneo-Palawan-Mindoro-Luzon, which gave access from the South China Sea to the zone between Celebes and New Guinea. Third, it was well-known to the Chinese who, ‘incapable of long voyages, without a chain of land for their guide,’ used the line Formosa-Luzon-Palawan to direct them to markets in northern Borneo and beyond. If the Company brought British and Indian manufactures, and the Bugis their birds’ nests, camphor and pearls, the Chinese would have every incentive to abandon Borneo proper, and even the long track to Batavia, in its favour.[39]
From Sulu, Dalrymple expected to sell English woollens into northern China. He hoped that non-standard Indian piece goods would find a market in the isles, where they were being traded by the Dutch. The British might then offer a lower, blended price when purchasing Indian cottons, and pressure their suppliers to raise standards. During his visit, merchants from Amoy offered to deliver three cargoes of tea by the following April, and ten more in September. That September, he signed an agreement with Datu Bandahara, Sulu’s chief merchant, by which he hoped to generate a profit of four hundred per cent. The plan was to barter a cargo worth 44,000 rials for Sulu goods worth 88,000 rials, and sell those in China for 176,000 rials. [40]
Madras judged that Dalrymple’s report ‘presented a field of vast extent for the improvement of commerce.’ In June 1762, he returned to Sulu, with the London, China and Osterly, to reap the fruits of his harvest and ‘to attack and destroy any ships or vessels of the enemy he may fall in with during the course.’ He discovered that Bandahara, and many others, had died as the result of famine and smallpox. A new contract was signed, by which the merchant Juan Patatawan agreed to deliver teepy shells, wax, sago and cowries to the value of $20,000 in three months and, later, an equal value in birds’ nests, teepy, sharks’ fins and sago. Unfortunately, Patatawan was unable to assemble the goods he promised and Bantilan, piqued that he had not been consulted, raised dissensions in the town, during which two of Dalrymple’s crew were murdered. Dalrymple became convinced of the need for a fixed establishment, with a stock of goods that could compete with Dutch Batavia and emporia like it. He fixed upon the island of Balambangan and, on 12 September 1763, he obtained from Bantilan a grant of cession for it, ‘as a place for trade, and for building and repairing ships, and for making a fort for its defence.’ On 23 January 1763, the Union Jack was hoisted.[41]
When Dalrymple next returned to Sulu, Bantilan was dead and his son, Alimud Din II, sultan. (Prince Israel, the son of the exiled Alimud Din I, was present.) Dalrymple learned that the Dutch were making overtures about their own treaty of friendship. He decided that this, and the potential for political disturbance, called for a reaffirmation of his earlier agreement. A second treaty, reinforced with the cession of territory in Palawan and North Borneo, was signed on 19 September 1763.
Dalrymple sailed to Manila, which had been captured, in October 1762, by the Cornish and Draper expedition from Madras. He discovered that Alimud Din I had signed another treaty with the Spanish, which conflicted with the British claims. He therefore settled with him that, upon his return to Sulu, ‘a Convention of the Estates should declare … that no Treaty concluded by him in his absence should be in force.’ To buttress his loyalty, he also arranged that Sarapodin, the sultan’s eldest son by a concubine, was given responsibility for the territories in Palawan and Borneo.
Dalrymple left Manila in April 1764. The expedition’s return to Madras was used to convey Alimud Din I to Sulu. In July, he confirmed all the earlier concessions, adding ‘the part of Borneo from Towsan Abai to Kimanis, the island of Palawan and all the other islands to the northward of Borneo.’ On 28 September, a perpetual treaty of friendship and commerce granted the English the rights to a factory, ground for plantations, and free trade exempt from duties.[42]
Recognising the sultan’s desire for peaceful relations with Spain, in 1761 Dalrymple had eschewed demands for a fort. Now, twenty thousand square miles of concessions made arrangements for their defence necessary. Dalrymple was unaware that Manila had warned that the establishment of a factory would breach the treaties between Britain and Spain. This affected Madras’s enthusiasm for the project, which had already cooled with the departure of Governor Pigot. Disappointment with the flow of Suluan merchandise was also a factor, though, for this, Madras’s failure to send the necessary shipping was partly to blame. When they heard that Dalrymple had used the Manila garrison to establish Balambangan, they were astonished at his presumption. Though informed ‘by private hand’ of his intentions, they could not believe that he would form a settlement without consultation. London agreed. They were alarmed by the sultanate’s fragility, judging that nothing but ‘strong fortresses and a respective force would secure it against such malicious designing people.’ They reckoned Dalrymple’s promised profits ‘chimerical’. Then they learned that, at his departure, Dalrymple had left behind numerous Chinese settlers and, worse, four hundred troops, with two months’ worth of money and munitions. They only re-embarked in March 1765 and, by then, debts of $55,000 had been incurred. Disagreements with the natives, whose predatory instincts became evident when the soldiers ran short of supplies, turned to open hostility. When George Dodwell was sent in the Patty to collect the survivors, just three hundred remained.[43]
And yet, the Directors refrained from demanding withdrawal. The collapse of Mughal rule in India had brought considerable financial challenges, yet they kept their options open until, on 28 October 1768, they applied to King George to grant his support. Their aims, they explained, were to attract Chinese trade to a Chinese settlement at Balambangan, to extend the sale of British goods to Cochin China and northern China, and thereby to obtain products at Canton, at affordable prices. The king’s response was mild-mannered given that he had, in effect, been presented with a fait accompli. He remarked that he was,
… extremely surprised to find the East India Company desire his Protection with regard to a measure upon which he has never been consulted, and to hear for the first time that they have ordered their servants to take possession of an Island, without the least information of any other Right, upon which the measure is founded except that of Utility, nor any account by which His Majesty might judge whether it can interfere with the subsisting Treaties with other States, or give umbrage to those Powers, with which he is on terms of Amity and Friendship.
Spanish claims were much in the British government’s mind. Alimud Din I argued that his treaty with Spain had been obtained under duress, yet the establishment, in 1766, of a British settlement in the Falklands meant that tensions with Spain were especially acute. (Both projects were manifestations of the same policy of forward penetration.) Dalrymple was called upon to prepare a detailed case to support the validity of his treaty: it was not until April 1770 that the Company received sanction to proceed.[44]
Without Dalrymple’s powers of persuasion and the troops who accompanied him, the sultan’s concessions may not have been as generous as they were. Certainly, after Dalrymple withdrew, the treaty of friendship proved less than perpetual, and the Directors’ estimation of the Sulu character prescient.
It didn’t help that their choice for chief was no better suited to the responsibility than Joyner had been at Banjarmasin. Dalrymple had not been shy to put himself forward: his biographer tells us, ‘his zeal was not always tempered by discretion.’ When, in 1768, he had been proposed to lead the expedition to observe the transit of Venus, in Tahiti, he insisted on a naval captain’s commission. At that, the First Lord, Sir Edward Hawke, declared he would rather suffer his right hand to be cut off. Now, Dalrymple demanded absolute management of the venture, a commission of four per cent on all cargoes bought and sold and, at the expiration of three years, a guaranteed lump sum of $8,000, to be paid even if the venture failed. The Directors offered a compromise. He refused it, a quarrel ensued, and, in March 1771, he was dismissed on the grounds ‘that the principal person of such an undertaking should pay a due deference and obedience to this Court.’[45]
In his stead, the Directors instructed John Herbert to take charge, using the Company ship Britannia. The settlement, they decided rather radically, was to be independent of the Indian presidencies, ‘which were only to assist it by advice and means.’ A governing council was to be formed, comprising the chief, two assistants, two factors, and two writers. For its protection, it was to have a force of sixty seamen, forty lascars, six officers, twenty European soldiers, twenty sepoys, and an engineer. Until such time as permanent buildings and a stockade were built, the Britannia was to be used as a floating factory and warehouse. A Bombay cruiser was to remain with her under the command of chief and council. They were ordered ‘to be most vigilant against treachery or surprise by the Malays.’[46]
In this way, John Herbert was vested with supreme authority over the enterprise.
The Britannia reached Madras, on 26 May 1771. Thereafter, Herbert was dilatory in the extreme. He claimed that he needed a rest for his health, then that the Britannia’s supplies were insufficient. Next, he wrote that,
… finding our wants extremely urgent particularly of arrack … and considering the circumstances and the heavy charge that must attend the taking up of freighted vessels, we esteemed it more eligible to purchase a vessel … belonging to Mr. Herbert of 300 tons burthen.
Having thus bought his own ship with the Company’s money, he added her to their establishment, thereby obtaining for her free maintenance. His course to Balambangan was unusual, involving stops at Fort Marlborough, the Straits of Sunda, and Pasir, east of Banjarmasin. There, a factory was established for private trade. Herbert insisted on an exclusive first right to sell his goods, but then made purchases from the others for the use of the Company, granting them a profit of twenty-five to twenty-seven per cent. By the time the Britannia reached Balambangan, on 12 December 1773, disbursements, ‘sundry purchases’, and worthless extensions of credit had accumulated, unexplained, in the books to the value of some £230,000.
When, in 1774, they realised what had happened, the Directors’ criticisms were excoriating:
The extraordinary and unwarrantable measures which you have adopted since we directed you to form a settlement at Balambangan, appear so alarming to us that we sent orders to Bengal overland to check effectually and without loss of time that extravagant disposition which is manifested in your whole conduct and to put a total stop to the dangerous experiment you are making for carrying on the new trade there … We must notice in general the utter impropriety of your incurring a profusion of expenses and entering into such extensive plans of commerce in an infant settlement …, we positively enquire you to confine your expenses in future to the line prescribed in your orders of 12th June 1771.[47]
In the circumstances, it showed a surprising degree of faith in Herbert’s propensity to repent that he wasn’t instantly dismissed and, as it happened, the censure served no purpose.
Herbert was expected to proceed slowly with a permanent establishment. Immediately, however, he built warehouses and wharves, accommodation and, on a hill overlooking the harbour and town, a fort. Trading posts appeared at Sulu and at Palawan. An agreement was struck with Brunei, granting Balambangan an exclusive right to its pepper, in exchange for assistance against the attacks of pirates. In December 1774, the Directors demanded that Herbert and his associates return home to justify their behaviour. They were too late. By the time their instructions reached Bombay, Balambangan was in ruins.
In 1773, Sultan Alimud Din I abdicated in favour of his son, Israel, who had been educated by the Jesuits in Manila. The more the English, to whom his kingdom was becoming indebted, grew in power, the more he inclined to Spain. English treatment of the Sulus became progressively more arbitrary. Israel complained of Herbert’s ‘cheating tricks’ and of their manner of placing his datus in the stocks if they got behind on their payments.[48]
In March 1775, one of the sultan’s chiefs, Tengteng, spied out the British fort. He realised that its armament faced the sea, and that it was exposed to assault from behind. The garrison had been reduced by disease. He joined forces with a chief on the neighbouring island of Banguey and launched his attack. The British were caught by surprise, put up little resistance, and in no time the settlement was overrun. The booty seized consisted of,
Forty-five cannon, two hundred and eight cwt. of powder, two hundred and fifty muskets, twenty-two thousand shot, a great deal of iron, lead, tin, and gold in bars, more than fourteen-thousand dollars (Spanish) in coined silver, a large quantity of muslins, and other kinds of merchandize, the whole valued at one million Spanish dollars.
Herbert, whose house was set at some distance from the settlement, escaped to the ship Endeavour, which was anchored in the harbour. Others were not so lucky, although the Endeavour rescued some, including those aboard the Phoenix, which had her cable shot away, and was left to the Sulus. Thirteen of the settlement were killed. The survivors escaped to Brunei on the Antelope. On board were all of Herbert’s personal belongings, but none of the settlement’s accounts.
From Labuan, Herbert informed Fort Marlborough that he had founded a settlement and that he was constructing a fort. It was, he said, ‘infinitely preferable’ to Balambangan, and he had contracted with the natives of northern Borneo for all of their pepper. Bencoolen was unimpressed. The Directors ordered him arrested and his property seized, but he eluded their grasp until, in 1781, he was given permission to return to India. His proceedings, London declared, ‘exhibited a scene of irregularity, duplicity, and presumption not to be equalled upon the records of the Company”, but he escaped a more severe penalty.’[49]
Whether Israel was complicit in the plot it is impossible to say, although he was related to Tengteng, and his attitude towards the Spanish offers ground for suspicion. A Mr. Barton who, once the dust had settled, was sent back to redirect ships to Labuan, told Sir John Clerke that Herbert was fully alert to the plan. He judged that, at best, Herbert’s failure to throw up entrenchments was negligent. He added that the attack had taken place without the knowledge of the sultan. With that verdict, the Company chose to agree.[50]
On the question of Spanish, or Dutch, involvement, the arguments are conceivably a little more nuanced. In 1815, John Hunt complained to Stamford Raffles that the Sulus ‘were instigated to the atrocious act by the Spaniards at Samboangan, and the Dutch at Monado and Ternate.’ The Sulus, he said, did not conceal that ‘they obtained every assistance and supply of powder arms’ from those sources. With this verdict, Sir John Clerke disagreed. At a time much closer to the events themselves, he wrote that, ‘the Spaniards certainly had no hand in the affair. If the Dutch were concerned in it, it was in such a manner that only Mr. Herbert (the Chief) can give a true account of it, which I fear he has very strong reasons for avoiding to do.’
On 17 July 1775, Sir John demanded an audience with the sultan to discuss the affair. It ended in mutual recrimination. Sir John refused the sultan’s gifts unless he made it clear they were meeting as friends. The sultan’s retort was that, unless Sir John moderated his language, they would not meet at all. Indeed, he went further, threatening that if the Englishman caused further offence, he would be lanced. When Sir John demanded $400,000 in compensation for the Sulus’ ‘unwarrantable attack’, the sultan countered that he could afford just $10,000. There the negotiations ended. Sir John indignantly announced that the Sulus should not be deceived by the ease with which they had overrun the fort, and that they should expect an avenging expedition. It did not follow, and the £170,000 the Company had invested in the Balambangan project became a total loss.[51]
Balambangan was briefly re-occupied in 1803 when, with the Peace of Amiens, Holland’s possessions in the Moluccas were restored to her. At Calcutta, Lord Wellesley saw a need for an eastern naval base. He hoped that trade between a settlement and China would ‘improve the pecuniary resources of the British establishment at Canton.’ Balambangan’s advantage was that the Company had never renounced its claim, and, since the sultan was acknowledged as its independent sovereign, neither Holland nor Spain could object if he invited the British back.
By now, Israel had been murdered by his cousin, Alimud Din II, but Alimud lasted just a year. From 1789, the sultan was Sarapodin, the prince whom Dalrymple had once declared to be ‘a Man of the greatest worth and honour I have known in any Country.’ Conveniently, Sarapodin was pressured by a war with Brunei and by opposition from within Sulu. To shore up his position, he associated with the Illanun pirates of Mindanao (he killed Captain Pavin of the Ruby with his own hand, before distributing her cargo), but his position remained insecure. Even as Dalrymple was showering him with praise, he wrote to Bengal ‘begging the Company to renew their former friendship, and enter an alliance with him.’
In December 1803, an expedition, consisting of eight ships (one was lost to fire, and two to a typhoon) was assembled under Robert Farquhar. He was well received, and his initial reports were highly optimistic. The value of trade quickly faded, however, and Farquhar greatly underestimated the costs. The land was infertile, and when the rice crop in Borneo failed, provisions had to be shipped from India. Sickness was widespread. The garrison was constantly on the alert for attacks from the French, the Dutch and the Illanuns. Their state of nerves was revealed when, without adequate reason, two Portuguese vessels were seized and sent to Penang. (Compensation was later paid.) In November 1805, the garrison and settlers evacuated.
Had it known about the expedition sooner, the Company would probably not have supported it. By now, it preferred to concentrate its defences closer to India. Indeed, when the war in Europe recommenced, the Directors wrote that the Balambangan should be abandoned, on the grounds that the forces needed to defend it ‘could ill be spared, under the probable circumstance of our again taking possession of the Islands belonging to the Dutch.’[52]
After this, the pirates tightened their hold. Farquhar castigated his government for their indifference: he said they were the reason why British settlements east of Bengal ‘ended almost invariably in a tragical manner.’ It was a verdict with which Stamford Raffles was to sympathise. When, in January 1814, he sent John Hunt from Java, he did so promulgate the message that, while Britain was willing to ‘pass into oblivion’ Sulu’s former piracies, henceforth they would punish any who harboured the Illanuns. At the end of his visit, Hunt advocated striking a blow at Sulu’s ‘villainous hordes’. His advice fell on deaf ears. It was to take a few years before they became the focus of attention. But that, as they say, is another story.[53]
