PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
TUTTICO 882
Reference -
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
(No. 246.) Sir,
. 164
Downing Street, December 4, 1871.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 239 of the 19th of October, in which you state the reason which induced you to appoint the Committee to inquire into the relations of the Straits Settlements with the neighbouring native States.
I have, &c. (Signed) KIMBERLEY.
The Officer Administering the Government of the
Straits Settlements.
NOTE,―Then follow the undermentioned despatches which will be found printed in their proper places:-
Governor Sir H. Ord to the Earl of Kimberley, November 6 and 11, 1872,. Nos. 10 and 12; March 20, No. 14; July 10 and 24, Nos. 4 and 25; August 26, No. 35; September 5, 19, and 27, Nos. 37, 42, and 43; and October 2, No. 48, 1873.
The Earl of Kimberley to Governor Sir H. Ord, January 17, No. 13; September 23, No. 32; and December 22, No. 60, 1873.
Inclosure 4 in No, 83.
(D.)
Correspondence between Governor Sir A. Clarke and the Secretary of State.
Then follows a despatch from Sir A. Clarke to the Earl of Kimberley, dated Singapore, November 19, 1873, which will be found printed in its proper place.]
Governor to Anson, Penang.
November, 1873. Proceed by Queen's ship, if available, or engage local steamer to the Dindings, and investigate recent reported attacks on boats in those waters, taking with you a European officer of police, and an armed party of selected constables, and establish a station of obser- vation and protection for British subjects on Pulo Pangkor, furnishing at your discretion certain of its inhabitants with arms and ammunition.
The station should have one or two good fast row-boats attached to it; boats should always show the flag.
Sir,
Lieutenant-Governor, Penang, to Colonial Secretary.
Lieutenant-Governor's Office, Penang, December 4, 1873.
I have the honour to report, that in accordance with instructions contained in your telegram of the 20th ultimo, I proceeded, on the 22nd, on board of Her Majesty's ship "Midge," to the Island of Pangkor, where I landed the party of police, consisting of a European officer, and ten native constables, leaving with them the "Lady Ord" cutter, two row-boats, and a set of tools, to enable them, with the assistance of the Punghulu and some of his people, to build quarters for themselves, as well as a station and boat-house.
I could obtain no further information regarding the act of piracy off Pulo Katla, reported by Captains Grant and Patterson, than that already given by the latter officer. It was stated, however, that three piratical row-boats had been reported as having been seen daily, up to the day previous, off the opposite shore, and that the village of Telluk Battu, in the bay at the back of Pulo Katta, had been entirely burnt by the pirates, by whom thirty persons, the whole of the Chinese, with the exception of one man, who had escaped, and given the information to some Malays, had been murdered. Upon learning this, we weighed anchor, and proceeded to inquire into the correctness of that statement.
On arrival at Telluk Battu, we ascertained that there was not the slightest foundation for it. A considerable number of Chinese were at work at tin-washing, and there was also present a small number of Malays; none of these people could give any information regarding the piratica! boats, which had not been seen by them since the visit of the
Midge" and "Avon."
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It being, however, represented that the boats were most likely either in the Tirum
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River, or at the entrance of the Perak River, we proceeded in the direction of those places; be the few Malays we met with off the entrances to those rivers, were entirely ignorant regarding pirates or Chinese row-boats, with the exception of one old man, whose two sons having been passengers on board the junk taken by the pirates off Pulo Katta, had both been killed; but even he could give no farther information regarding them.
Not being able to ascertain anything concerning the movements of the pirates to the south of the Dindings, we returned northward, and visited the Bruas and Larut Rivers.
Up the latter river we visited the site of the lower stockade which was destroyed by the boats of Her Majesty's ship "Thalia" and "Midge," and also the stockade adjoining it, recently erected by the Chinese adherents of the Orang Kaya Muntri.
We went as far as the upper stockade, which has been erected by the Chinese who are inimical to the Muntri, on the site of that which was also destroyed by the boats of the men-of-war. On arrival, within about 100 yards of this stockade, which appeared erowded with Chinamen, the flags, of which a great many were flying, were immediately furled, as a sign that they had no hostile intentions towards us. I sent, and requested the Headman to come on board the "Mata Mata," to see me; but it was found that he was not there, being up the river at the town of Larut, and that the people in the stockade were, as they stated, only coolies, which means that they were only fighting men.
We saw the Muntri's Shabundhur, or Harbour-Master, at the lower stockade, but he could give no information regarding the piratical boats. He mentioned, what has since been corroborated by the Agent of the Muntri in Penang, that the Muntrl's forces, includ- ing Captain Speedy, and his sepoys, and 1,000 men, sent by the Raja Bandhara (the elected Yang di Pertuan), were preparing to attack a stockade manned by the opposite faction up the country near the mines.
As this Government had so far assisted the Muntri as to issue the Proclamation of 3rd September, 1873, prohibiting the exportation of arms, ammunition, provisions. &c., from Perang to Larut and the other adjacent parts of the coast of Perak, and had employed two gun-boats Her Majesty's ships "Midge" and "Avon"-to enforce this Proclamation as well as to put a stop to the piracica that have lately been committed off those places and within the waters of the Settlement, I considered that the Muntri's first duty was to assist in every way in the suppression of these piracies.
I had, therefore, recommended that he should establish his forces on the coast and possess himself of all the hostile and the piratical villages between the River Krean, our southern boundary, and the Larut River, and thus cut off all communication between the pirates and the interior, and after that commence his operations inland.
As the hostile Chinese in the interior are dependent on the piratical row-boats for their supplies of food and ammunition, the acts of piracy being committed in order to furnish these supplies, the measures I suggested would have tended more than any other to put a stop to these piratical attacks and to have relieved this Government of any further anxiety on account of them.
The main object of the Muntri, and more particularly of his Chinese adherents, is to obtain possession of the great source of wealth of the country,-the tin mines, about which all the fighting and disturbances have taken place. It appears to me, therefore, that so long as the Muntri and his party can rely upon the assistance of this Government to defend the coast from attacks by sea, and to prevent ammunition and provisions being supplied to their enemies, they will give no assistance in suppressing piracy, but will greedily give their whole attention to recovering possession of the mines.
Were it not for the assistance being rendered by this Government directly, by enforcing the Order in Council, and indirectly by checking piracy, the Muntri and bis party would very soon be turned out of Larut by the opposite Chinese faction.
The state of affairs that would then obtain would be that the country of Larut would be governed by a certain number of Chinese merchants and other headmen in the Settle- ment, representing a faction made up of a number of friendly tribes from particular districts in China from some of which an exodus of bad characters and persons reared to fighting, pillage, and piracy, has recently taken place; many of which fugitives driven from China have found shelter here and at Larut.
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Under such a state of things, and as the Malays would be quite incapable of coping with the Chinese backed as they would be by the wealth of the rich merchants in this Settlement and Singapore, for there are some at the latter Settlement who are mixed up in these affairs, it stands to reason that without some intervention nothing but anarchy and riot could be foreseen as the future of this unhappy country.
That which makes the position of affairs worse is the disputed succession to the Sultanship. This divides the Malay population of the rest of Perak (in Larut there are very few Malaya compared with the number of Chinese) into two factions, that which
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