THE BRITISH COLONIES IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 613 
which was estimated as betwixt eight and ten thousand Malays. 
During all of these operations these were only four men killed and 
twenty wounded on the British side, the enemy’s loss could not 
be ascertained. 
After this defeat the Malays directed their "warlike energies to 
piracy, which they found, until a very recent period, to be both 
safe and profitable. Their mismanagement, and perhaps in some 
degree pusillanimity on the occasion just noticed, contrasts however, 
very strongly with the tact and courage which the Lanun and other 
pirates of these present times have displayed in their encounters, o 
not with a few puny vessels and gun-boats, but with the well man¬ 
ned and armed boats of the British navy. 
As might have been expected from a native chief, the Rajah 
denied all participation in the attack on Pinang, but unluckily his 
written order for it had fallen into Captain Light’s hand, and his 
own boats continued blocked up in the Pry river. Nevertheless his 
conduct was overlooked, as he had fairly exhausted every mean 
by which he could have hoped to dislodge the British from Pinang, 
an^l as the latter had certainly been gainers by the original and 
crafty asseveration of the Rajah that he was an independent prince, 
but the unsoundness of which the Bengal government had no easy 
mode at the time of ascertaining, for had the only other party who 
could have known the truth, the Siamese court, been appealed to, 
there would under any circumstances have been but one reply, and 
that adverse to the Rajah’s claims. It would have referred to the 
Malayan history itself of the Keddah country and to their own records 
in proof of its ancient dependence \a\ and to the rebellion against 
Siam in 1720, and the fact that all its Rajah’s before and since- 
that period had been placed in authority by the Emperor of Siam,, 
for evidence of it’s modern state of vassalage to [&] that country. 
The Coromandel merchants brought from that coast in this year 
to Pinang goods of the value of six lacs of rupees. The Bugis : 
prahus brought gold and silver to the amount of 250,000 dollars^, 
taking opium in return. 
12th August 1791.— A preliminary treaty was entered int@» 
betwixt the Rajah of Keddah and Captain Light, the principal 
provisions in w T hich were a yearly stipend to the former in the 
capacity of Ruler de jure in Keddah of six thousand dollars, so- 
long as Pinang should he retained—provisions to be exported to 
Pinang from Keddah duty free, slaves and debtors and murderers 
on both sides to be delivered up, no Europeans excepting the 
British to be permitted to reside in Keddah. 
In 1792 the Rajah notwithstanding all past experience gave 
umbrage to Siam by aiding or at least countenancing an attack 
made on the Siamese provinces of Dalung and Sangora by 400* 
Hajis and 3,000 Patani men, who however were cut up by Ihe 
[«] The Abbie Choisy in 1686 notices its dependence on Siam. 
[ b ] M. de Loubere describes the rebellion. 
