The White Rajah of Bencalis

 The two State Kreis of the White Rajah always lay on a table at my grandmother’s home. They were associated with an act of derring-do typical of the imperial Britain in the age of Queen Victoria but much frowned upon today. The hero of the action was Adam Wilson, a Scots-born Australian who was given the fine-sounding title of Maharajah Muda Satiah Rajah by the Sultan of Siak a century and a half ago:

We appoint Mr Wilson commander-in-chief and place all the rajahs and chiefs of whatever rank under his orders. If anyone refuses obedience or turns traitorous we will destroy him. And if we ourselves fail in the agreement we will submit to any punishment Mr Wilson pleases and if our people hang back on the day of battle we will take their vessels and arms from them and will consider them as traitors. Let this be so.

This was signed with Sultan’s seal that I still have.

Wilson came to the Malay Archipelago a little later than the most noted white rajah, the Rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke. Wilson’s territory was an island, Bencalis, off the east coast of Sumatra, just across the Straits of Malacca from Singapore.

Such was his escapade that some thought he might have been the model for Joseph Conrad’s Tom Lingard, hero of Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands and The Rescue. Conrad came later to the East than Wilson but as the character Lingard is based on legend and hearsay, so the figure of Wilson came to him through legend. In a letter to the collator of the family history, Conrad wrote from his home in Kent in November 1922:

My latter acquaintance with the archipelago was made in 1886, some 30 years after Mr Adam Wilson’s enterprise on the coast of Siak.

We could not have met. His attempt was bound to fail from the mere nearness of his objective to Singapore, and it was a most dangerous thing to do.

If the Dutch encouraged him, (which is hard to believe) it could only have been to decoy him into a death-trap and this get rid of “these intolerable Englishmen”, who, as a Dutch official once expressed it to me, “infest” their seas.

In fact, I understand they were infuriated at what they called the “intrigue with the Rajah of Siak”.

But all that story was taking a legendary shape in my time. I heard also some other stories of that kind.

Your letter is the first positive assurance I receive that such a person as Mr Wilson really existed. The legend (unless I misheard) called him Allan Wilson.

The Lingard of the Rescue (and other books) “infested” as the Dutch would say, the Archipelago in the decades 50 to 70 of the 19th century.

In his existence I believe (though he too was legendary already) I heard of some episodes in his life from his nephew, James Lingard, who had been brought out East by his uncle, and when I first knew him, was an officer in the Siamese navy and First Lieutenant of the King’s yacht.

Tom Lingard, was, of course, of a very different social status from Mr Wilson: a seaman trader with an adventurous vein in his character …

Conrad made four trips to Berau, a trading post on a river in Eastern Borneo (now the Berau Regency in Eastern Kalimantan). Captain William Lingard had set himself up as a trader in the Archipelago in the 1860s and like “Tom Lingard”, discovered for himself a river where he had a monopoly of trade.

Wilson came to be working in Singapore for his uncle, Alexander Dyce, and the trading firm, Martin Dyce and Co. Wilson had been brought up on a property near Morpeth in the Hunter Valley. Members of the Wilson family had first come to New South Wales in 1833 and one of them, Jane Cruden Wilson, had given Lismore its name (named after an island in Loch Linnhe on the west coast of Scotland).

Wilson also worked in Manila and was for a time proprietor and editor of the Singapore Times. Then, as his mother wrote to a relative, “he was offered possession of a large territory if he would quell a turbulent brother”.

The Sultan of Siak, Tuanka Ismail, was in dispute with his younger brother, Tuanka Shireef. It concerned the warrior role played by the younger who declared that the Sultan “wants to rule himself in Siak but I won’t let him; that he will not abide by the ancient custom that the successful warrior in war who is liked by the great men shall rule”. Instead the Sultan “seeks to destroy the great men and plunder the traders”.

In August 1856, the Sultan sought the aid of the British in Singapore, then part of the Straits Settlements. The Governor, Edmund Blundell, refused assistance. The Sultan turned to Adam Wilson, described as “a young mercantile man of Singapore”. Wilson had attracted the Sultan’s attention on a big game hunting expedition in Sumatra and the Sultan appreciated the fact that he was the type of man to lead a force against his rebel viceroy and settle the country. Wilson joined the Sultan, obtaining arms and ammunition in Singapore and finance to support his expedition.

As a concessionaire, Wilson and his group were “to assist us in subduing our rebellious provinces with one armed schooner and one gunboat”. The Sultan granted him the island of Bencalis and conferred on him the title of Maharajah Muda Satian Rajan with complete command of his forces under two documents dated the fifth and tenth days respectively of the month Jemalad awal (probably February 1857).

Wilson was given a seal stating “The Rajah Muda to the Sultan of the Faithful, in the year 1272”. There was a State Kreis and a second Kreis presented to him by the Sultan. A watercolour sketch in the robes as Rajah Muda was painted about this time.

Wilson’s band probably had eight or nine Europeans and a further 100, mixed Europeans, Chinese and Buginese. According to a Dutch report the armed schooner carried a twelve-pounder gun, four one-pounders on swivels and two blunderbusses on stands. (A blunderbuss filled with grapeshot or jagged bits of iron was a terrible weapon at close quarters.)

From early November 1858 until May the next year Wilson tried to pacify the country. He surrounded the rebels in Siak, in his words, “having worsted the rebels in several engagements and forced them within the walls of the town of Siak, which they have strongly fortified and which we have not yet succeed to taking”.

Clearly Wilson was winning the struggle, as the rebel younger brother complained to the Governor of the British Straits Settlement that the Sultan “has sought and engaged white men in his service”:

I was in the interior at the time. He sent these white men up the river [Siak]. They plundered and ravaged and burnt. They destroyed my dwelling house. I represent this to you that you may assist me against the white men for they are your men and I do not wish to offend you, but if after receiving this letter these white men continue their ravages there will be nothing for me but to resist.

I never before heard of white men acting as Malays or making private treaties. By the Treaty between the King of England and the King of Holland [1824 Treaty of London], English cannot enter into Siak or interfere with its affairs. Those white men are acting as if it was their country and ravaging and plundering traders and women. What do they want with us Malays? I make the representation in the hope you will assist me against these white men. Let me and my brother fight it out. Don’t let these white men interfere.

It seems the Dutch were behind these complaints.

Then on January 12, 1857, a Dutch gunboat appeared as Wilson was besieging Siak. The Dutch captain stated that he had come to look on. Wilson retorted:

Knowing the intriguing character of the Dutch and their extreme jealousy of the English, I felt sure that he had some other motive and did not wish him to have an opportunity of opening a correspondence with rebel party within gunshot of whose batteries we were then lying.

Wilson persuaded the Sultan to request the gunboat to leave, which it finally did but not without instilling fear into “the minds of the chiefs and even of the Sultan by the reports of the Dutch landing a force against us that I was for the time being actually obliged to give up the attempt on Siak and return to our headquarters in Bukit Batu.”

The Sultan’s forces were just beginning to recover their morale when, at the end of February 1857, another Dutch gunboat appeared off Bukit Batu. “Again the same underhand influences were at work,” Wilson remarked.

Several of the chiefs were won over either by threats or promises and I found that some had gone so far as to offer a communication with the opposite part, refusing to obey my orders and on one occasion even threatening to fire on me.

I was at length compelled, in self defence, to take possession of the vessels and arms belonging to the more turbulent. The gunboat took their part, refused to leave the river and finally fired on my men, killing one of them by her first discharge.

Wilson retired to Singapore where he recruited 200 native Bugis. He returned to Bukit Batu and prepared to attack Siak. Unfortunately Wilson fell out with some the chiefs or Datus and then with the Sultan. Matters became very confused, leading Wilson’s lieutenant, N.M. Carnie, to retaliate to rebel fire.

While in Singapore Wilson saw the ominous site of a large steamer, the frigate Merapi, with six guns and two gunboats in tow pass through the harbour. It sailed for Bukit Batu to join with the rebel chief.

Carnie diligently defended Wilson’s interests by fortifying the fort at Klapa Pati and defying the former Dutch Resident of Riouw (now Kepulauan Riau), F.N. Nieuwnhuyzen and his successor, J.M. Tobias. Wilson arrived, to write to the Dutch: “Will you please observe that the English flag is flying on the fortifications. I utterly protest your interfering with my erecting fortifications on ground that is indisputably mine.”

The Dutch stood by the conditions of the 1824 treaty that they claimed denied the British any enterprises in Sumatra. Carnie attempted to complete work on the fort while the Dutch threatened retribution. When Wilson arrived at Klapa Pati he immediately sent the Dutch Resident on board the Merapi a copy of the Sultan’s Bencalis concession. The Dutch claimed that the Sultan had reneged on the deal. Within days they assaulted and levelled the fortress.

Back in Singapore, Wilson wrote to the Governor: “I claim as a British subject and merchant the right of settling on my own property and also of fortifying my house thereon, should I deem it necessary for my ‘safety’.” He claimed an indemnity from the Dutch government for their interference. The Governor replied that: “he does not consider himself empowered to take congizance of any private establishment by Englishmen on the coast of Sumatra effected without the sanction or acknowledgement of this government or any British Authority …” Any claim Wilson might make against the Dutch government would have to be made direct to the government.

Wilson published a letter in the Singapore Free Press giving details of the incident and it came to the attention of the British ambassador at The Hague, Sir Ralph Abercromby, later Lord Dunfermline. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Earl of Clarendon, sent a note to the Indian Board of Commissioners: “Do we consider that Wilson was justified in his proceedings? Sir R. A. [Abercomby] should request and know if report in Singapore paper is true and if so under what instructions the Dutch authorities acted?” The Dutch parliament also took an interest, urging their government to extend their settlements in other parts of the Eastern Archipelago to “avert the danger which threatened them from the increase of foreign influence in those quarters”, or as Conrad put it, to get rid of “these intolerable Englishmen” who “infested” their seas.

Memoranda and notes were exchanged between the earls of Clarendon, Shelburne and Malmesbury, all Ministers in Lord Palmerston’s Tory government. In October 1857, Lord Shelburne told Abercromby:

The question in reality at issue is that of the right of the Dutch to interfere with arrangements made between an independent rajah and a private person, that private person, Mr Wilson, having suffered in his property which he was using at the time in service of the rajah.

H.M’s Government hold, as you justly observe, that the Dutch have no right to interfere with the independence of the native princes, acknowledged by us as so existing previous to our treaty with Holland in 1824.

But it was not Lord Shelburne who was dealing with the matter, nor Lord Palmerston, author of gunboat diplomacy, but rather the timorous Straits governor, Mr Blundell, whose strongest comment was: “It may perhaps be considered that there has been an absence of courtesy on the part of the Dutch authorities in not informing us of their intentions to form an establishment in Siak.”

As the family historian wrote:

Therefore, the definitive policy of the British Government maintained and insisted on for over 50 years was brought to nought mainly through the ineptitude of Mr A. E. Blundell, Governor of the Straits Settlements. For there can be no doubt that the Dutch knowing his general attitude and refusal to support in any way Adam Wilson’s claims, seized the opportunity to make good their footing in Siak.

Nonetheless, when the Dutch attempted their traditional policy towards Sir James Brooke—whose claim on Sarawak had much in common with Wilson’s on Bencalis—the British did provide support, so establishing the independence of this possession. But Adam Wilson received no compensation from the Dutch and the British government did nothing further in the matter.

According to the family history, “the sympathy of all British residents in the Eastern Seas as well as that of officials was almost unanimously in his [Wilson’s] favour on account of the treatment meted out to him by the Dutch and British governments.”

Wilson became a broker in Singapore and secretary to the Singapore Stock Exchange until 1866.