488 A TRANSLATION OF THE KEDDA ANNALS. 
views by ceding Pulo Finang, to which Province Wellesley was 
afterwards added. The cession was made under the express avowal 
of the Raja that he was an independent prince [ ] The Siamese 
court protested against the cession, but as the island was then 
apparently to them of little or no value, and they were, involved 
in‘constant wars with the Surmans, the subject was dropped, and 
the right to occupy as acquired by actual occupancy was subse¬ 
quently admitted by Siam. The treaty of cession was not an 
offensive and defensive one, so that the chief object of the Raja 
was defeated. Such a treaty could not have been justly framed 
by the British when it became clear, as it soon did, that Kedda 
was subject to Siam. It was clearly the interest of the then Raja 
to deceive Captain Light, the original negotiator, while that officer 
seems to have been quite ready to give credence to his positive 
assertions of’ his independence. One advantage the Rajas did gain 
and kept up to the expulsion of the late Raja, and this was that 
the knowledge of a friendly relation subsisting betwixt Kedda and 
the British deterred the Siamese court from many acts of sover¬ 
eignty, of no very mild character perhaps, which it would else have 
inflicted on that country. But the feeling was obliterated by time 
and old customs again resorted to. 
The late Raja who enjoyed the Siamese title of Chau Pangeran, 
bat who was a person of little political foresight, and acted (as 
the Malays generally do) from the impulse of his feelings, became 
refractory, and was expelled by a Siamese force in A D. 1820, 
He took refuge within the British territories, where he continued to 
live until a few years ago, when by the intercession of the Indian 
government, at the suggestion I believe of Governor Bonham, the 
Siamese were induced to permit him to return to Kedda as its 
governor. But they gave him only a part of the country, from 
and. including Kedda river and a space to the N of it; south to 
Krean river [excluding of course Province Wellesley.] The three 
other portions were placed under Malayan chiefs. When this had 
been effected, the Siamese governor was with his troops withdrawn, 
The Raja died in about 1845-46 and one of his sonsTuanku 
Daii, having gone to make obeisance at the court of Bankok, was 
placed in the government with an inferior title, for it is the policy 
of Siam to elevate public officers by degrees of rank according to 
their merits. 
[ ] Pinang Records, 
