Wilkinson

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*The Malacca Sultanate 

BY 

The Hon'ble R. J. Wilkinson. 

Alone among Malayan townships Malacca may claim to be regarded as ancient and sedate.  Singapore is no older than the lifetime of a man, and Ipoh has won its notoriety within the memory of a boy ; while Malacca is historic.  Her centuries are few, but they are full of achievement, and there is very little local glory in which she does not share.  By the Portuguese conquerors she was named la famosa, "the Renowned ;" she is linked with the memory of Camoens, Albuquerque and St Francis Xavier, and stands for whatever is medieval and romantic in a country that is lacking sadly in veneration and romance. 

But there have been many Malaccas ; and the oldest of all - that of six centuries ago - was a petty village of Sea-Sakai or Orang Laut, a fishing-hamlet of no fame and.no importance.  A humble beginning, perhaps, for so great a name; yet there are times when it is well to be obscure and when meekness may inherit the earth.  The third quarter of the fourteenth century was one of these occasions.  The greatest local power of that day, the Javanese empire of Majapahit, decided suddenly to play a leading part in history and to take a high place among the conquering nations of the world.  It sent out its fleets, swept down on the thousand-year-old Malay kingdom of Palembang, and overthrew it utterly.  It destroyed Palembang’s daughter - the town of Singapore - with a massacre so cruel that for centuries afterwards the memory of that colony’s awful fate was enough to deter any Malay from settling on the island.  It broke the rising power of Pasai, the first seedling of a Muhamadanism which was destined at a later date to overthrow Majapahit itself.  It harried Langkasuka (Ligor), and left that ancient Indo-Chinese kingdom - older even than Palembang itself - to fall an easy prey to the advancing armies of Siam.  The wars of 1370 to 1380 A.D. effaced all that was then ancient and historic in Malaya.  But, as for Malacca, what was there in a street of shanties and a fleet of dug-outs to attract the conquering arms of Majapahit ? 

So Malacca was spared to become a refuge and a shelter for the homeless people of the stricken towns, men of Hinduized Singapore and Palembang, Moslems from Pasai and Buddhists from the North.  The little aboriginal fishing-village of 1370 A.D. had become a cosmopolitan trading-port in 1403 when it figures for the 

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first time in the records of contemporary nations.  The town in those early days was a walled or stockaded cluster of huts upon St. Paul’s Hill ; and right in the heart of the place there was built a wooden godown or store in which goods were warehoused for safe keeping pending the arrival of a trading coaster or junk.  The currency was tin; the trade was in tin, resin, and jungle-produce.  The local Chief, a Hindu by faith, styled himself paramisura or king, but a few years later he became a Muhammadan and took the name of "Sultan Muhammad Shah, the Shadow of God upon Earth." He was a keen man of business and made at least one voyage to China in pursuit of his own ends. 

Almost all the present Sultans of Malaya - outside Selangor - claim descent from the Paramisura who reigned over the godown on the slopes of St. Paul's Hill.  To this day, when the casual visitor walks from the landing-steps to the Stadthouse he can see on the slopes of the hill a weird image that an expert will tell him is a Makara, a monster of Hindu mythology, the sole surviving relic of the time when the Ruler of Malacca was still a Hindu.  Among the regalia of one of the Peninsular Sultans he may also look upon a silver seal, a reputed relic of the Paramisura’s later years since it bears the name of the "illustrious Sultan Muhammad Shah, God’s Shadow upon earth."  But the courtly genealogists of our Malayan princely houses do not stop at Muhammad Shah ; they trace his pedigree through a long line of earlier kings, rulers of Singapore and of Palembang, to Chosroes the Great, King of Parthia; to Alexander of Macedon, King of Rome ; to Darius and Artaxerxes, Kings of Persia ; to Jamshid and Kai Kaius and Kai Kubad, Kings of Romance; as far as Kaiomerz, "son of Adam and elder brother of Seth," for it is to Seth that the meaner branches of humanity owe their origin.  But The Paramisura himself knew nothing of this ; he was not a genealogist ; he had an eye for realities.  He went submissively to China with his tribute of tin and jungle-produce, accepting in return raiment embroidered with dragons or unicorns, girdles of precious stones, gold and silk and paper money.  One quaint old piece of embroidery in the ownership of a modern Peninsular Sultan seems to date back to the time when the Ruler of China honoured the Paramisura with dragons of gold and gems. 

The line of trader-princes did not die with Muhammad Shah.  His son, Iskandar Shah, paid two visits to China, one in 1414 and the other in A.D. 1419.  Iskandar Shah died in A.D. 1424 and was succeeded by "Sri Maharaja," otherwise Ahmad Shah, another merchant-king.  In the days of its poverty, Malacca had been a village of mean huts served by humble dug-outs, but the visits of the great Chinese junks made it grow into a trysting-place for the traders of the Eastern seas.  Whole colonies of strangers flocked to the port from Java, from Burma and even from distant Madras.  Suburbs sprang into existence.  Bandar Hilir began as a Javanese settlement ; so did Kampong Upeh (Tranquerah) ; the Tamils and the Burmese had also quarters of their own.  St Paul’s Hill was 

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merely the citadel, the heart of Malacca, the abode of the Sultan and of his Malay nobles, the ruling centre of the town.  But the days when the Sultan attended personally to business were over : a new generation of Malay princes had sprung up, eager for fame and wealth yet averse to labour : greedy of glory but not of the risks of war.  The toll levied on the trade of the port enabled the Sultan to send out armed bands of hooligans who forced the little hamlets on the coast to bow to the dominion of Malacca.  This was the second Malacca the imperial city of Mudzafar Shah and Mansur Shah (1445-1470 A.D.) the old Malayan Empire at the very height of its greatness when it ruled over Pahang, Kampar, Siak and Indragiri. 

What was it like, this chief among Malayan cities of the year 1460 A.D.?  The old primitive semi-aboriginal village of the Paramisura had been swept away; it had known no houses except dug-outs, and no luxuries except matting, in the making of which the women excelled.  The new Malacca lacked its modern hinterland of rice-fields and orchards ; it was still a thin line of houses stretching along the sea and river front.  But the line was longer than before and the character of the houses had changed with the character of the town.  The place swarmed with adventurers from all parts of the East.  In its stories we read of Afghan swashbucklers ; Indian jockeys and mahouts ; Kling warriors who - after the manner of their kind - advanced when the enemy retreated and retreated when the enemy advanced ; and men of religion from Arabia, sometimes genuinely pious, sometimes merely hypocritical, but always thoroughly unpopular.  Indeed such a cosmopolitan seaport town was no place for the practice of the meeker virtues. We read of a government, stern, severe and corrupt ; of municipal surveyors who induced the Sultan to decree that a street must be straight in order that they might be bribed to certify to the straightness of the crooked ; of judges who took presents from one side on the clear understanding that they were not to be blamed if they took presents also from the other ; of the election of a prime minister by the simple process of setting all the candidates in a row and letting the Sultana say "choose Uncle Mutahir.’"  In such a city of the strong no weak citizen was really free ; every man sought a patron, the mightier the better, for it was better to pay toll to one chief than to many.  Thus it came about that the greater nobles lived in walled enclosures amid the huts of their own followers and slaves.  There at least they were safe from the irresponsible bravoes who levied blackmail for themselves by asserting falsely that they came in the dreaded name of the King.  At night every enclosure was bolted and barred against the intrusion of thieves, trespassers and illicit lovers ; and even policing was unpopular since it exposed the patrolling minister of police to the risk of finding his sovereign in places where the Sultan did not want to be met. For in this 

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city where every other law was broken daily there was one rule that was kept inviolate : no man, whatever his wrongs, dared lift his hand against the King. 

It was a strange feeling, this loyalty of the ancient Malays. A man might murder a hero or saint, or betray a relative or friend, or abduct an innocent girl : if he did it in the interests of a royal intrigue it was a noble act of self-sacrifice according to the ethical code of the day.  And strangest of all was the spirit in which tyranny was met.  The chief of the King’s Ministers, the "Uncle Mutahir’" to whom allusion has been made, had so much love for a favourite daughter that he kept the report of her beauty from reaching the ears of the Sultan lest she should become the victim of his caprices.  The girl married her cousin.  The Sultan came later to a knowledge of the truth.  He slew the girl's husband and carried her off to his palace ; he slew the girl’s father and all her family ; he sent men also to carry off the wealth of the house.  Yet when the dying "Uncle Mutahir" saw his own indignant son destroying property rather than let it reward the iniquity of the tyrant, he stayed him: “Is the Sultan to be impoverished and my death to profit him nothing?” Even a protest against royal ingratitude had to be driven home by self-sacrifice.  A Malay noble who had grown grey in his ruler’s service and had risen to be War Minister and Commander-in-Chief once saw an enemy’s fleet approaching and felt that resistance was vain.  He said little.  He drew up a list of the few gifts that he had received from his master in the course of his long years of work - a plate or two of chipped china and a pot or two of worn brass - and sent the list, emphasizing its poverty and meagreness, with a farewell letter of thanks to the donor.  The King was profuse in his penitence.  But the old man would take no further reward : he named the spot at which he was destined to die and went down to meet death for a cause that he saw was lost and a master whom he knew to be worthless.  Conduct of this sort was ideal loyalty, as the Malays of the time understood it. 

Such loyalty degrades a royal caste.  The self-made early princes of Malacca, the Paramisura and his son, were men of business and intelligence.  The conqueror-kings, Mudzafar Shah and Mansur Shah, were men of ambition.  But the later Kings of Malacca, born when the wealth had been acquired and the ambition realized, were gloomy, capricious and jaded tyrants who found more interest in destroying than in building up.  Sultan Mahmud Shah, the last of the Malacca rulers, was a roi fainéant.  He plundered, and violated ; but he was wise enough to leave all the real work of administration to his Ministers.  Foremost among them was the Bendahara who was destined to so tragic an end ; next came the Bendahara’s son Tun Hasan, Minister of War, and the Laksamana Hang Nadim who commanded the fleet.  Even at this distance of time when 

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we read the cold commentaries of the Portuguese and the gossiping tolerant anecdotes of the Malay Annals we can feel that these three ministers were men of unusual character: the eldest, the Bendahara, calm, self-contained, temperate and cautious ; the two younger men, passionate perhaps and hot-headed, but gifted with an energy and a persistence that is rare among men born under the sun of the equator.  And Malacca. needed them ; for it was just when these three men were at the height of their authority that the town was startled by an unexpected and most ominous apparition - the first European fleet that ever sailed into its harbour.  That was in August, 1509 ; the Admiral was the Portuguese, Diego Lopez de Sequeira.

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*The Capture of Malacca, A.D. 1511. 

BY 

The Hon'ble R. J. Wilkinson. 

In an age accustomed to the comfort of modern sea-travel it is not easy for a writer to convey more than a faint academic idea of the hard lot of the first-comers to the Eastern Seas: the leaky ships, the stifling cabins, the staie unpalatable food, the putrid water, the dirt, the overcrowding, the scurvy, the danger of storms, the discomfort of the steamy tropical calms, and the anxiety of approach to an uncharted and hostile coast. Yet if we are to take the measure of men like d’Almeida and d’Albuquerque we must try at least to realize the task that was set before them. Columbus and da Gama had been simple navigators who staked their lives upon their skill and upon the truth of their geographical beliefs. The first "Viceroys" were men of another type, men who dreamed dreams and saw visions of empire in the seemingly hope'ess plan of pitting the small frail ships of Portugal against the untamed vastness of the Indian Ocean and against the teeming millions who inhabited its shores. D’Almeida. was the apostle of Sea-Power. He saw that with all their apparent weakness his ships had at their mercy the commerce of whole continents; and he preached the doctrine of asupreme navy. Alfonso d’Albuquerque disagreed. He was a veteran and distinguished soldier, a man of authority, who believed in Sea-Power but not in its all-sufficiency. He mocked at the theory of an Eastern empire that owned no ports or sdocks and could not caulk a ship except by the favour of an ally. He was the apostle of the Naval Base, sea- power, resting on’ the shore. Moreover, as a man of ancient lineage, cousin to Spanish kings, himself a knight of the Order of Christ, he would not take service under Francis d’ Almeida. 

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King Emmanuel put an end to the quarrel by naming both the disputants Viceroys and by giving each of them a fleet and a separate sphere of authority. This was in 1508. To another adventurous spirit, Diego Lopez de Sequeira, the King gave an independent command, a squadron that was to operate outside the waters of India and Africa and to bring new oceans under the sea- power of Portugal. These last were the ships that cast anchor at Malacca on that fateful Ist August, 1509. 

As soon as the fleet was anchored a boat put off from the shore to ask in the name of the Bendahara who Sequeira was and why he. came. Sequeira had brought an Arabic letter from King Emmanuel to the Sultan of Malacca; he asked permission to deliver it: along with the gifts that went with such epistles. He was forced to wait. His arrival was an event of the first magnitude to Malacca; was it wise to begin relations of which no man could predict the end? So thought the Bendahara. The Sultan saw no harm in reading a letter and receiving gifts that committed him to nothing; he overruled his minister. A Portuguese named Teixeira was sent ashore and was conducted on an elephant to the palace, where he had the desired audience of the King. It is not difficult to picture the scene: the crowds outside who mobbed Teixeira in their inquisitiveness ; and the silent staring faces that lined each side of the long palace-gangway up which an envoy was expected to make his way, with many halts and ceremonious bows at every few feet of the passage and every step of the dais. Teixeira was a stranger to Malay etiquette. He presented his letter with a sailor’s jovial cordiality, and in a burst of further friendliness he fastened a necklace of beads round the neck of the Bendahara, just as though that minister was an African Chief who would glory in such tinsel. An angry murmur followed the Portuguese as he fumbled with the sacred person for the first noble in the country. “Let him alone: heed him not; he is only a mannerless boor’’, said the Bendahara. Teixeira’s bold and blustering assurance was intensifying the nervousness, the fear of the Unknown, that chilled every heart in Malacca. 

The days passed. No man dared attack the strangers ; yet no man ventured to befriend them or trade with them, for who could foresee the end? The Indian merchants were anti-Portuguese to a man; they knew what trade-rivalry meant. The Bendahara saw that the strangers would be far less tolerant of oppression than the Indians whom they wished to supplant; in the interest of trade he preached. a holy war against the infidel. The warriors of the city were discreet. They were to get the hard blows of the war, and: the Bendahara the pickings of the. trade; they elected to arm and wait. No-one in fact wanted to fight. Sequeira had come for customers. He waited, hoping that the Malays would appreciate his pacific policy, but he could gain nothing by delay: it was the one thing that. the Malays desired. Sequeira grew impatient, then petulant, then menacing; the monsoon was slipping by and he 

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could wait no more. Even at this stage, war was not what he wanted, nor did it suit the Malays. A situation of extreme delicacy is always fraught with dire peril; and in this case the accidental (or semi-accidental) firing of an alarm-gun on a Protuguese ship led to hostilities over some petty mistake. The fighting was half-hearted but it spread. The Malays on board the Portuguese ship jumped into the sea; such European sailors as happened to be on shore were seized and captured. Teixeira saw the error when too late. He was too weak to attack the sullen angry city that had now broken off all relations with him; the monsoon was dying away; his ships were sadly in need of repair; and in the end he had to sail home having tarnished the fame of his country and left his luckless comrades at the mercy of their foes. 

According to Malay ideas the Bendahara was the leader of the resistance to Sequeira. He had done no fighting; indeed he had done nothing at all; but a statesman who achieves stupendous results by the simple process of inaction is a man who deserves better of his country than the hero of a hundred costly fights. So thought the people; so, doubtless, thought the Bendahara himself. The Sultan thought otherwise. He saw that "Uncle Mutahir" was becoming far too great a personage; and he recalled many old grievances against his minister. There was the avuncular wealth to be garnered ; and there was that little matter of the Bendahara’s daughter which had never been explained to His Highness’s proper satisfaction. His Highness sent two of his followers to summon the Bendahara “to God's presence” as they politely put it. The Bendahara bowed his head and died. The men of his household died with him; his daughter was carried off to the harem of the Sultan ; and his riches were dissipated in festivities at the wedding of the Sultan’s daughter to the son of the Ruler of Pahang. Suddenly in the very midst of all this wassail the King’s joy was turned into bewilderment by the unexpected reappearance of the Portuguese fleet - this time in overpowering strength under the Viceroy d’ Albuquerque himself. 

As soon as King Emmanuel had heard of the disaster to Sequeira he had sent (March, 1510) three ships under Diego Mendez de Vasconcellos to avenge the defeat. These ships sailed first to India to consult with d’Albuquerque- The great Viceroy was too expert a commander to weaken his forces by dispersing them into detachments; he detained Vasconcellos depending the complete subjugation of Goa and the organization of the naval base in India. Then when all was ready in the early Summer of 1511, d’ Albuquerque sailed out to attack Malacca with every ship and soldier that he could muster. On the 1st July, 1511, he appeared in the roads with the entire force of Portuguese India, - nineteen ships, 800 European soldiers and 600 native sepoys, - with trumpets sounding banners waving, guns firing, and every demonstration that might be expected to create a panic among the junks in the harbour and the warriors in the town. , 

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The effect was immediate. The ships in the harbour - Chinese junks and Gujerati trading-vessels—tried to sail away, but were intercepted and brought back to their moorings with every show of friendship. They then offered to join the Viceroy in the attack on the town, but this offer was declined with thanks; the Portuguese admiral could afford to bide his time. Meanwhile the Malays and the Sultan were too dumbfoundered to act; no boat put out from the shore, no message was sent. By the following morning, however, the Sultan, regaining some of his old assurance, sent a boat to. greet d’Albuquerque and to say that the wicked Bendahara who had instigated the attack on Sequeira had been punished with death for all that he had done. D’Albuquerque replied, expressing his gratification, but pointing out that the Portuguese prisoners had not been released, and that pending their release the town must be regarded as accessory to the attack on Sequeira. The Sultan was now in a dilemma. He realized that he could not keep the prisoners without removing his mask of friendliness, nor could he release them without giving up his hostages for the security of the town. He tried the Bendahara’s policy; he temporized, But d’ Albuquerque was no Sequeira. He knew that any general attack would be the signal for the death of his. fellow-countrymen ; still, risk must always be taken. He entered into secret communication with Ruy d’Aranjo who was the leader among the captives and his own personal friend. Ruy d’Aranjo spoke of divided counsels in the city, and advised attack. The Viceroy continued to feel his way. He seized some of the shipping and sent a few shots into the town. Then he waited. The hint was taken ; Ruy d’Aranjo was released. 

The Vicorey was now in a stronger position. He went on to ask for a heavy indemnity and for permission to open a permanent trading-station at Malacea. .The Sultan demurred ; he might have allowed the factory but he was quite unable to spare any money for the purpose of buying off the Portuguese. Meanwhile the war-party in the town was coming slowly to the front. It was headed by the Sultan’s son Alaedin, by the Prince of Pahang, and by the young bloods of the place whe knew nothing of war and were eager for the fame that it brings. The Sultan himself preferred peace and quiet. He thought he could secure what he wanted by letting the Portuguese and the war-party oblige each other with the necessary quantum of fighting; as for himself he was a peaceful person who cared for none of these things. He told the Viceroy that he was poor and anxious for friendship, but quite unable to meet the demands that were being made upon him. 

D’ Albuquerque began now to prepare for war. He knew his own mind and had a definite policy : that of substituting a Portuguese for a Malay government and leaving the foreign traders undisturbed. He gave the Javanese and Indian leaders assurances to that effect and received their promise of neutrality in return. In the matter of local knowledge he was well served by the fact that Ruy d’Aranjo 

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and the other prisoners had spent two years in the town and had come to know the locality, the language, and the foreign merchants. Still the task before him was a hard one. In those days the channel of the Malacca River turned sharply to the right after reaching the sea and allowed ships to lie at anchor off the mudbanks on which the houses are now built. Disembarkation on those mudbanks was impossible; the key of the position was the landing-place at the mouth of the river and at the foot of St. Paul's Hill, but unfortunately for the Portuguese this point lay beyond the reach of the covering-fire of their ships’ guns wile it was exposed to the fire of every Malay stockade and building in the vicinity. The Viceroy tried to grapple with the difficulty by building a sort of armed raft or floating-battery which could float in shallow water and be moored at the mouth of the river so as to silence the Malay gun-fire and cover the landing of the troops. The battery was a failure. It grounded in the wrong place was exposed to a very heavy fire, and was only saved from capture by the heroism of its commander, Antonio d’Abreu who stuck to his post though wounded grievously. At last d’Albuquerque was compelled to attack without the help of any artillery to cover his advance; he sent out a strong force, cleared the landing-place of the enemy’s troops by a sudden rush, and then forced up the floating-battery to a more commanding position where it made short work of the Malay defences. This advantage was not secured without heavy loss; for after the first surprise of the first Portuguese attack the Malays had rushed together from all quarters and had made a most desperate onslaught upon the landing party which they endeavourea to throw back into the sea. The prince Alaedin, mounted on an elephant, headed this charge in person; and the Portuguese lost 60 men before it was repulsed. This success and the destruction of the Malay defences encouraged the Portuguese to follow up their advantage by an attack upon the mosques and palaces on St. Paul’s Hill, but the Malays were numerous and were fighting under cover while the Viceroy’s troops were bewildered by the confused mass of building and were driven back with heavy loss. So ended the day. The Portuguese had cleared the landing-place; and that was all. 

The crowning attack took place on St. James’ Day, the 24th July, 1511. The Viceroy landed troops again under cover of the guns of his floating-battery but when once they had come ashore they were charged by a wild mob of 700 Malays and mercenaries under the Prince Alaedin in person. The fight was long and furious; and though it put the Portuguese to heavy loss it could only end in one way: armour, superior weapons, discipline,- everything was on their side. The Malays retreated once more to the shelter of the buildings that had served them so well on the previous day. This time d’Albuquerque advanced with more caution; he burnt the buildings as he went along. The work was slow and cruel, for the defenders shot down poisoned arrows upon 

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the attacking Portuguese, who were burdened with the weight of their armour, and exhausted by the heat of the sun and by the fire and smoke from the burning houses. Again and again, with diminishing forces, did the Prince Alaedin lead out his men in sudden rushes and win momentary success, only to be repulsed in the end. So too, now and again from the upper reaches of the river, did the Laksamana Hang Nadim send down his war-canoes or fireships to take the enemy in the rear or harass his communications—all to no avail. Night separated the combatants; and the Portuguese retreated to their ships, saddened by their heavy losses and by their consciousness that the work of destruction was only half accomplished. 

On the following day the Viceroy disembarked his men once more and proceeded with every precaution to assail the smoking ruins that had covered the resistance of the last two days. He found no one to oppose him. Prince Alaedin and his Laksamana had retreated up the river and were awaiting attack at Pagoh on a battlefield of their own choosing. The Prince of Pahang had gone back to his own country as the fighting had lost all attraction for him. The Sultan had seen the burning of the palace and was not sure that his policy of lazy neutrality would justify him in meeting the Viceroy face to face; he removed himself with all possible despatch beyond the reach of any Portuguese marauding party. The aged bedridden Bendahara who had succeeded the murdered Mutahir was borne off in a litter by his loving relatives while he invoked curses on the cowardice of a generation that was not as the warriors of his youth. The Malay power was broken. The Javanese, Burmese and Indian merchants were for peace at any price and hastened to make their submission to the Viceroy, and, as an earnest of their goodwill, helped him to dislodge the Prince Alaedin from his chosen lair at Pagoh. The prince fled far away ; a few scattered bands of outlaws represented all that was left of the famous Malay empire of Malacca.