^66 SUMATRA. 
who were both his near relations. None of the royal family furvived 
In 1622 but his own Ton, a youth of eighteen, who had been thrice ba- 
nilhed the courts and was thought: to owe his conli nuance in lifcj only 
to his furpafling his father, if poflible, in cruelty, and being hated by 
all ranks of people. He was at one time made king of Pedeer, but 
recalled on account of his excefles, put to llrange tortures by his father, 
and confined in prifon.^ He did not outlive the king. The whole 
territory of Acheen was almoA depopulated by wars, executions, and 
oppreflion. He endeavored to repeople the country by his conquefts. 
Having ravaged the kingdoms of Johor^ Paham, Qucda, Pera, and 
Oelhy, he tranfportcd the inhabitants from thofe places to Acheen, to 
the number of twenty two thoufand perfons. But this barbarous policy 
did not produce the effedl he hoped; for the unhappy people being 
brought naked to his dominions, and allowed not any kind of mainte- 
nance on their arrival, died of hunger in the ftreets.i In the planning 
his military enterprizes, he was generally guided by the diftrefles of his 
neighbours, whom he ever lay in wait to make a prey of ; and his pre- 
paratory meafures were taken with fuch fecrecy, that the execution alone 
unravelled them. Iniidious political craft, ami wanton delight in blood, 
united in him to complete the charader of a tyrant. 
Leaving no male heirs he was peaceably fuccecded in the government 
by his queen ;^ and this prcfents a new era in the hiftory of the king- 
dom, as the fuccelfion continued for many years in the female line.* The 
nobles finding theii po wer lefs reft rained, and their confequence more 
felt, under an admlniftration of this kind, than when ruled by kings, 
fupported thefe pageants whom they governed as they thought fit, and 
thereby virtually changed the conftitutjon into an ariftocracy. The bu- 
finefs of the ft ate was managed by twelve orang cayos, of whom the 
Beaulieu. ^ BeauUeii. Colleftdon^f Dutth ^oyaget. ^ Viet de$ Gorefneurs. 
* It has been 1 common error, repeated in many books of GeogmpLhy, to fuppofe that queen 
Eliiabeib correfponded with a queen, and not a king, of Acheen. But the femaJe reigns did 
not commence till forty years after Eliiabeth's deatiu 
Maharaja^ 
