32 HISTORY OF KEDAH. 



The list of the early Muhammadan kings given in those 

 *" Annals " is as follows : — 



Mudzaffal Shah (Phraong Mahawangsa) 



i i 'i 



Muazzam Shah Raja Muhamad Shah Sulaiman Shah 

 (reigned at Kota Palas) (ruled Langkapuri) 



i 



Muhammad Shah 



i 



( ? Mansur Shah) 



I 

 Mahmud Shah 



I 



Sulaiman Shah 

 {carried to Aeheen 1619 A.D.) 



It was in the reign of iSultan Muazzam Shah, the second Muham- 

 madan ruler of Kedah, that the " Keclah Annals " profess in their 

 preface to have been composed (J. E. A. S., S. B. 72, p. 37). If 

 that statement is true at any rate of the nucleus of the book, it 

 ■would be for Malay histories of a very respectable age indeed. But 

 that there have been many recensions is clear not only from the in- 

 cident of Shaikh Nuru'd-din's Sirabu'l-mustakim, but also, as we 

 shall see, from the completion of the list of rulers down to very 

 recent times (ib. p. 122). Another anachronism may be the men- 

 tion of Kuala Changgong, if that name means Rangoon, which 

 latter name dates from 1755 A.D. only. 



Just as Siamese influence had not saved Kedah from the 

 Portuguese and the Achinese, so too it did not save it from the 

 Dutch. Having trade routes not only from Singapore but from 

 Patani it was a very important centre. " On the 11th July 161:2, 

 the king of Kedah, whom Matelief had visited in 1606, agreed 

 with the (Dutch East India) Compagnie to let her have half of the 

 Jin-production of his country at a fixed price and not to admit ships 

 without the Compagnie's permit. An attempt was made to obtain 

 a similar contract from Perak which was richest in tin. But that 

 country refused, giving as a reason its vassalage to Aeheen. On 

 Kedah a tight hold was kept. The instructions to ' break up the 

 office there' (1686) also contained orders ' f or the blockade of its 

 port.' This command was repeated three years later : the Governor 

 was told to c blockade the river of Kedah as closely as possible : ' 

 in 1663 the i Dagregister ' mentions that ' the river of Queda is 

 .still being blockaded ' and in 1664 the Netherlands Indian Govern- 

 ment resolves, in spite of the king's wish for peace, ' to continue 

 the blockade of Queda on the old footing.' Kedah did not bear 

 this meekly; in 1676 Governor Bort writes to Batavia that f the 

 Compagnie's cruising sloops had been assailed many times about 

 Pera and Queda by Malay pirates.' And shortly afterwards he 

 reports that l about Dinghdingh another sloop with a crew of six 

 had been rushed by the Quedaze pirates owing to the crew's own 



Jour. Straits Branch 



