Article

An expedition to Mount Batu Lawi

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An expedition to Mount Batu Lawi

Lee Kam Hing and Ahmat Adam (1990) examine the circumstances surrounding the conferral of the Order of the Golden Sword by Sultan Jauhar Alam Syah of Aceh upon Sir Stamford Raffles in 1811, a decoration that Raffles later incorporated into his personal coat of arms. Drawing on a recently discovered Malay letter from the Sultan and the Raffles-Minto Collection in the India Office Library, the authors resolve questions first raised by C. A. Gibson-Hill in 1956 about the timing, motivation, and significance of the award.

Summary

The article addresses a puzzle identified by Gibson-Hill three decades earlier: Raffles included the Acehnese Order of the Golden Sword in his 1817 coat of arms, yet none of his biographers mentioned the award. The authors establish that the decoration was conferred on 27 April 1811, when Raffles was serving as agent to the Governor-General for the Malay States and was in Melaka preparing for the British invasion of Java. The Sultan’s letter, delivered by the envoy Tengku Nakhoda Abdul Rahman, was enclosed as “enclosure No. 7” in Raffles’ dispatch to Lord Minto dated 11 June 1811, meaning the Governor-General was formally informed of the award and the matter was a proper diplomatic exchange rather than a private or irregular transaction (pp. 77–78).

The authors then explore the diplomatic context that made the award meaningful to both parties. The Sultan had been aggrieved by the 1808 seizure of his ship the Hydroos by Penang authorities and was under suspicion of harbouring French naval interests in Acehnese ports. Raffles’ letter of early 1811, which briefed the Sultan on impending British military moves against the French in Java, must have been received as a significant gesture of goodwill and a signal that the British regarded Aceh as a potential ally. The authors argue that the award was a reciprocal diplomatic gesture — the Sultan reciprocating presents (likely gunpowder and firearms) that Raffles had already sent — and that Raffles valued it because it was the first award from any monarch he received, and because Aceh held a distinguished place in the history of Anglo-Asian relations dating to the 1602 treaty (pp. 80–82).

The article further situates the award within the broader Acehnese succession crisis. By 1817, when Raffles obtained his coat of arms, the three Panglima Sagis had already declared the overthrow of Jauhar Alam Syah and invited Syed Hussein Aidid of Penang to the throne. Raffles’ inclusion of the Golden Sword in his arms is read as a public affirmation of his consistent support for Jauhar Alam Syah’s legitimacy — a position that culminated in his decisive role in the 1819 British mission to Aceh, which ended the civil war in the Sultan’s favour and led to the signing of a treaty with the British (pp. 82–85).

Key Findings

  • The Sultan’s letter conferring the title Sri Paduka Orangkaya Berpedang Emas (His Excellency the Nobleman with the Golden Sword) is dated 27 April 1811 (Hijri 1226, third of Rabiul-akhir) and was delivered to Raffles in Melaka by the envoy Tengku Nakhoda Abdul Rahman (p. 78).
  • The letter was enclosed as “enclosure No. 7” in Raffles’ dispatch to Lord Minto dated 11 June 1811, now held in the Raffles-Minto Collection, Vol. 6, India Office Library, London (p. 78).
  • The Hydroos, a ship purchased by the Sultan but still registered under a Danish citizen’s name, was seized and sold by Penang authorities in 1808 when hostilities broke out between Denmark and Britain; the cargo was later returned but the vessel itself was not (p. 80).
  • In July 1815, Governor W. Petrie of Penang obtained a loan of $50,000 from Syed Hussein at 12% interest, and a further $30,000 in August 1816, illustrating the commercial entanglements between Penang officials and the Acehnese claimant (p. 82).
  • Raffles proposed in 1810 that the British establish a resident in Aceh supported by a force of 100 sepoys to manage port duties on behalf of the Sultan, with costs borne by the Acehnese (p. 83).
  • The first treaty of friendship between the English East India Company and an Asian power was signed with Aceh in 1602 under Sultan Ala’uddin Riayat Syah (p. 82).

Conclusion

The authors conclude that the Order of the Golden Sword was a legitimate diplomatic exchange, properly communicated to the Governor-General, and that Raffles’ decision to incorporate it into his coat of arms in 1817 was a deliberate public statement of his consistent support for Sultan Jauhar Alam Syah’s legitimacy against the Syed Hussein faction backed by Penang merchants. The award thus serves as a lens onto a broader and more significant aspect of Raffles’ career — his sustained engagement with Acehnese politics — which culminated in the 1819 mission that ended the Acehnese civil war and secured a British treaty with the Sultan (p. 85).

Context

  • The study draws primarily on the Raffles-Minto Collection (India Office Library, London), the Straits Settlements Factory Records, and a recently discovered Malay manuscript in Jawi script (1 folio, 47 cm × 57.6 cm) held in a private collection in Britain, translated by Ahmat Adam (pp. 86–88).
  • Historiographically, the article resolves the speculative questions posed by Gibson-Hill (1956) through documentary evidence, and connects the personal decoration to the larger narrative of British-Acehnese diplomatic relations and the 1819 succession crisis.

References