THE DUTCH IN PERAK. 267 
style; some were armed with halberts, some held pikes in their hands, and 
a few had musquets without bayonets.* The King made me sit on a chair 
before a sofa on which he sat himself; his courtiers, about 12 or 14 in 
number, all, stood. After some little conversation the King asked me if the 
Dutch meant to return to Pera. I answered that I believed they did, on 
which he looked grave. He then withdrew: and his brother entertained me 
with a cold collation at which two more persons sat down. I had presented 
the King with two pieces of Bengal taffeta and found when I got into the 
boat a large present of jacks, durians, custard apples and other fruit. I left 
Pera river in December, 1783. Much rain fell in November.” 
The founding of our Settlement of Penang im 1786 had a decided 
effect on the Dutch monopoly of the Perak tin trade, and ANDERSON 
quotes the following description of Perak given by Captain Grass, 
the Commanding Officer of the Troops. after Penang had been 
occupied a short time :— 
« Perak borders on Quedah and extends about 50 leaguesinland. Near Perak 
river it is well cultivated and it contains 30,000 people, exports annually 5,000: 
peculs of tin which is delivered to the Dutch at 32 Spanish dolars per bhara of 
428 lbs. The Dutch have a small Stockade Fort with about 50 people there to 
prevent the natives from carrying the tin to other markets; but with all their 
precautions, the quantity they used to receive is greatly lessened since the set- 
tlement of this island. The people of Perak are in general very ignorant, their 
revenues so sma!l and their residence so far inland that little is to be feared from 
their animosity and less to be hoped from their friendship while connected with 
the Dutch.” t+ 
The settlement of Penang was only nine years old when the 
Dutch were compelled finally te surrender the commercial advan« 
tages which they had held so long. In 1795 Malacca was taken by 
the English, and in the same year, the little detachment in Perak 
was forced to retire from their stockade on theriver bank. ‘‘ Lord 
“CaMELFORD, then a Lieutenant in the Navy, and Lieutenant 
“ MacaisterR proceeded there with a small force and compelled 
“the Dutch Garrison to surrender.”{ The position then lost was 
never recovered. Malacca was restored to the Dutch in 1818, but, 
owing to the establishment of Penang as a commercial port, all 
chance of regaining the tin-monopoly was gone for ever. “In 
“1819,” says Colonel Low, ‘‘the Dutch tried to re-establish them- 
* This agrees very much with the Malay chronicle as to the pains which 
the Perak Malays took to impress their European visitors with the grandeur 
of their Raja. 
ft ANDERSON’s “ Considerations,” pp. 52-53. 
{ ANDERSON. 
