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A Portuguese account of Johore. Joao Tavares de Vallez Guerreiro. {Extracts from Jornado de Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho

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A Portuguese account of Johore. Joao Tavares de Vallez Guerreiro. {Extracts from Jornado de Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho

T.D. Hughes translated and published in 1935 extracts from the Jornada de Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho (1718), a contemporary Portuguese account by Captain Joao Tavares de Vellez Guerreiro of the Governor of Macau’s wintering in Johore during the succession crisis of 1717–1718. The work provides the only known European eyewitness narrative of this pivotal moment in Johore’s history, documenting how a single undermanned Portuguese vessel shaped the outcome of a dynastic struggle and secured a treaty with the new Sultan.

Summary

The Jornada records the voyage of Governor Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho from Goa to Macau in 1717–1718, a journey interrupted by a damaged vessel and adverse weather that forced him to winter in the Johore River. With only twelve Portuguese, five small cannon, and a crew of black sailors, the Governor found himself in the midst of a succession crisis between the reigning Raja Muda (son of the murdered Sultan Mahmud) and the pretender Raja Kechil, who had seized Bengkalis with twelve galleys obtained through deception and was backed by the treachery of the Datuk Bandar, the kingdom’s fleet commander. The Governor’s intervention was decisive: he blockaded the river mouth, seized and executed Raja Kechil’s scouts, and ultimately provided the tactical counsel—positioning 200 matchlock men on the heights above the Datuk Bandar’s fortress—that led to its capture and the pretender’s accession.

The narrative is remarkable for its detailed observations of Johore’s military and economic capacity, its court protocols, and the complex interplay between the Portuguese, English, and Danish trading vessels anchored in the river. Hughes’s translation preserves the author’s soldierly style and his evident admiration for the Governor, whose character is portrayed as a blend of martial daring, Catholic piety, and aristocratic disdain for commercial motives. The Governor’s refusal of 20,000 patacas offered by the King in favour of requests for a church site, the release of Christian prisoners, and artillery supplies frames the entire episode as an act of religious and honourable duty rather than political opportunism.

The account also illuminates the continued prestige Portugal commanded among the Malays nearly eighty years after the fall of Malacca to the Dutch in 1641. The Johore court’s deference to the Governor—evidenced by the King’s personal intervention to protect Portuguese personnel, the granting of a church site, and the delivery of the English vessel into Portuguese hands—testifies to a diplomatic weight that far exceeded Portugal’s material military presence.

Key Findings

  • Johore’s military capacity under the Raja Muda: over 100 river galleys, a total fleet exceeding 1,000 armed boats, more than 1,000 pieces of bronze ordnance (ranging from 2-pounders to 24-pounders), over 2,000 guns, and 5,000 armed men in the Court alone (pp. 120–121).
  • The Raja Muda’s fleet of 70 galleys (including three royal garabus) was destroyed in a single engagement when the Datuk Bandar’s crews defected mid-battle to Raja Kechil’s side (p. 129).
  • The Raja Muda fled Johore on 4 March 1718, carrying gold loaded onto thirty men; his two treasure sloops were deliberately burned by their guards to prevent capture by Raja Kechil (p. 133).
  • The treaty between the Governor and Raja Kechil was signed and sealed on 7 March 1718; the Governor took solemn possession of the church site at Johore Lama on 25 March 1718 (the Feast of the Annunciation) (pp. 142–145).
  • The English Captain (Ricardo Langdon) was killed by Malay guards in the palace on 8 April 1718 after a shooting incident; the Governor’s intercession saved the remaining English crew from execution, and the King delivered the brigantine Success and bronze cannon to the Governor as a mark of gratitude (pp. 147–153).
  • The Datuk Bandar’s fortress, which controlled the narrowest point of the river, was armed with fourteen bronze cannon of 12, 16, and 24-pound calibre, supported by four armed sloops and 24 galleys (p. 137).

Conclusion

Hughes presents the Jornada as irreplaceable evidence that Portugal, despite the loss of Malacca, retained a form of soft power in the Malay world well into the eighteenth century. The Governor’s ability to dictate terms to a sovereign sultanate with a single undermanned vessel—and to have those terms honoured in writing—demonstrates that the prestige of the Portuguese name, inherited from the age of Afonso de Albuquerque, still functioned as a diplomatic currency among the Malays. The account also corroborates R.O. Winstedt’s tradition that Raja Kechil was a young son of Sultan Mahmud, lending contemporary European testimony to a point previously supported only by Malay sources.

Context

  • The translation is based on the 1905 Lisbon reprint (Vol. L of Mello d’Azevedo’s Biblioteca de Clássicos Portugueses) of the 1732 edition; the original 1718 Macau edition is extremely rare. The text was identified through the private library of Dr. Jose Caetano de Soares in Macau (p. 111).
  • The article fills a significant gap in the historiography of eighteenth-century Johore, for which no contemporary European account previously existed. Hughes’s translation was checked by R.O. Winstedt, then General Adviser to Johore, whose History of Johore (1933) had just been published (p. 113).

References