mae OU ETCH IN PERAK. 
HEN, a few years ago, in pursuance of a new policy res- 
pecting the Native States on the Peninsula, a British 
Political Officer with a small guard took up his resi- 
dence just above the navigable part of the Perak river, 
it was within the knowledge of few persons probably 
that the Dutch had, more than two hundred years before, 
established a trading station a few miles lower down. And when, 
after one year, the experiment collapsed, the Resident was mur- 
dered and the Residency placed in a state of siege, it was never 
pointed out, as far as I remember, that history was repeating itself 
and that the Duteb traders who had settled on the Perak river in 
1650 were murdered in 1651 by the Malays. Fortunately the 
parallel ends there, for the speedy punishment which overtook the 
murderers, in 1876, was of course more effectual than the efforts of 
the Dutch to obtain satisfaction for the tragedy of 1651, efforts 
which were protracted, as will be seen further on, for ten years. 
Perak now bids fair to become as settled and prosperous as any 
British Colony, but the Dutch episode in its history should not be 
forgotten, and the following pages contain a collection of extracts 
from Huropean and Malay authors bearing upon it, more interest- 
ing, as I think, in the original words of the writers than any con- 
nected accounts which could now be compiled. 
Hamitton alludes to the Dutch disaster in the following pas- 
SE 3 
“ Perak is the next country to Queda. It is properly a part of the Kingdom 
of Johore, but the People are untractable and rebellious and the Government 
anarchical. Their religion is a heterodox Mahometism. The Country pro- 
duces more Tin than any in India, but the Inhabitants are so treacherous, 
faithless and bloody, that no Huropean Nation can keep Factories there 
*« A new account of the Hast Indies, being the Observation and Remarks of 
Capt. A. HAMILTON whospent his time there from the years 1688 to 1723.” 
Edinburgh, 1727, Vol. II., p. 73. 
