Part 13

It had a large Malay population, people whose ancestors had for generations belonged to the place and who were saturated with ancient customs, prejudices, and superstitions that had to be learned, and with many of which it was difficult to sympathise. It had an unusual number of Rajas and Chiefs, each with some kind of privilege or vested interest. The revolting practice of debt-slavery, under which the slaves often suffered indescribable wrongs, was rife in the land, and, though contrary to the Muhammadan religion, was supported and clung to by all the upper classes. The State was torn by internal dissensions, the jealousies and rivalries of opposing claimants to the Sultanship and other high offices. The rivers and jungle tracks were the only means of getting about the country. The white man was an unknown and unfeared quantity.

Mr. Birch, unfortunately, for all his long Eastern experience, knew very little of Malays and almost nothing of their language, and, though he always had with him a very capable Malay interpreter, the inability to carry on a direct conversation with chiefs and people greatly increased his difficulties. He was not, however, the man to sit down in the face of opposition either to save himself trouble or to acknowledge defeat, and the consequence was that his extraordinary energy in travelling about the country, “spying out the land,” and his persistence in attempting to redress grievances, to save lives, to bring the guilty to punishment, and to induce the then Sultan, Abdullah and his immediate following to mend their ways, earned him the determined opposition of all those who disliked interference, and preferred the state of uncontrolled lawlessness to which they were accustomed.

Mr. Birch lived in Perak as its Resident for barely twelve months, but to trace with care the reasons why his relations with Abdullah grew daily more strained till matters culminated in the assassination of the Resident, would be to write a volume. It is sufficient to state a few of the more prominent facts.

First, it is necessary to say in the most positive terms that Mr. Birch was assassinated solely and entirely for political reasons, for the reasons I have already given. He was white, he was a Christian and a stranger, he was restless, climbed hills and journeyed all over the country, he interfered with murderers and other evil-doers, he constantly bothered the Sultan about business and kept pressing him to introduce reforms, while every change is regarded by the Malay with suspicion and distrust. That was his crime in their eyes; of personal feeling there was none, wherever Mr. Birch went there were people who had to thank him for some kindness, some attention. The Malays have always admitted this, and, if it seems strange that I should make a point of the motive, it is because Europeans who did not know have suggested that the Resident’s murder was due to non-political causes, a suggestion for which there is not a semblance of foundation.

By September 1875, matters had come to a deadlock. With the Resident, in what was called the down-stream country, was a Sultan, Abdullah, created by the British Government, but declining to accept the advice of the Resident who had been appointed at his special request. Abdullah’s opposition was mainly negative but absolutely effective, for as the Resident could only tender advice and had no commission, and no sufficient means to compel its adoption, his voice was that of one “crying in the wilderness.” Up-stream there was another Sultan, Ismail, elected by some of the chiefs but admitted to have no sufficient claim to the post. Between the partisans of these rival Sultans, very strained relations existed.

Then there was another claimant to the Sultanship in the person of the Raja Muda Jusuf, who lived still further up country, and while his claims were undoubtedly the best, his personal unpopularity was so great that the people would not accept him as Sultan.

The success of the Residential idea (for no one had attempted to formulate any scheme or system) depended on the existence of mutual confidence and friendship between Sultan and Resident. That was, unfortunately, wanting, and, as after many months of patient effort on the part of Mr. Birch the desired result seemed further away than ever, the governor of the neighbouring colony (then Major-General Sir W. Jervois, R.E.) determined to visit Perak and see what chance there was of establishing administrative authority, collecting revenue, and otherwise carrying out the provisions of the Pangkor Treaty.

As the result of that visit and of interviews between the Governor and the Chiefs, a proposition was made to Sultan Abdullah that the government of the State should be carried on in his name by British officers. He hesitated for some days, but, finding that the Raja Muda and others had at once and gladly accepted the suggestion, he determined to do the same, fearing, no doubt, that otherwise he might be left out of the administration altogether.

It was the Malay fasting-month, the _bûlan puâsa_, when these last events occurred. It is not an auspicious time for conducting negotiations with Malays, they do not even attempt to work for that month, they sleep for most of the day and sit up most of the night, eating and talking, discussing affairs and hatching plots. This, at least, is the case with the upper classes, and it is they only who are concerned in political movements; the common people do not fast as a rule, and leave the plotting to the chiefs, whose business they think it is to scheme and to direct, theirs to obey.

In Lower Perak during this particular month of Ramthân, an unusual amount of discussion had been carried on between Sultan Abdullah and his chiefs, and they determined not only that the British Resident should be got rid of, but one of them, entitled the Maharaja Lela, undertook to do the business the next time Mr. Birch visited him.

This man, the Maharaja Lela, was a chief of considerable rank, after the Sultan he was the seventh in the State. He lived at Pâsir Sâlak, on the right bank of the Perak River, about thirty miles above the residence of Sultan Abdullah, and about forty below that of ex-Sultan Ismail. He avoided Mr. Birch whenever it was possible (though living only five miles from him), and managed to keep friends with both Sultans.

During the month, Sultan Abdullah, who was then with his boats at Pâsir Panjang, a couple of miles below the Maharaja Lela’s house, summoned his chiefs and informed them that he had given over the government of the country to Mr. Birch. This announcement was received in silence by the others, to whom it was doubtless no news, but the Maharaja Lela said, “Even if your Highness has done so, I do not care at all. I will never acknowledge the authority of Mr. Birch or the white men. I have received letters from Sultan Ismail, the Mĕntri and the Pĕnglima Kinta telling me on no account to obey the English Government in Perak. I will not allow Mr. Birch to set his foot in my kampong at Pâsir Sâlak.”

The Sultan said, “Do you really mean that, Maharaja Lela?” and the Chief replied, “Truly I will not depart in the smallest degree from the old arrangement.”

Another chief, the Dâtoh Sâgor, who lived on the other side of the river, exactly opposite to Pâsir Sâlak, said, “What the Maharaja Lela does I will do.”

The Sultan then got up and withdrew.

Two or three days before the end of the month the Sultan called another meeting of his chiefs at a place called Durian Sa’bâtang, ten miles below the small island on which the Resident’s hut stood. At that meeting the Sultan produced the proclamations which were to be issued, placing the administration in the hands of British officers, and asked his chiefs what they thought of them. The Laksâmana, an influential chief, said, “Down here, in the lower part of the river, we must accept the proclamations”; but the Maharaja Lela said, “In my kampong I will not allow any white man to post those proclamations. If they insist on doing so, there will certainly be a fight.” To this the Sultan and other chiefs said, “Very well.”

The Maharaja Lela immediately left, and having loaded his boats with rice, returned up river to his own kampong.

Pâsir Sâlak was the usual collection of Malay houses scattered about in groves of palm and fruit trees by the river-bank. Prominent amongst these was the Maharaja Lela’s own dwelling, a large and comparatively new building of a more than ordinarily substantial kind, round which he had for months past been digging a great ditch and throwing up a formidable earthwork crowned by a palisade. These preparations had been duly noted by the Resident.

Arrived at his own home, the Maharaja Lela sent out messengers to summon all the men in his immediate neighbourhood, and when they were collected he addressed them and stated that Mr. Birch was coming up the river in a few days, and that, if he attempted to post any notices there, the orders of the Sultan and the down-river chiefs were to kill him. The assembled people said that, if those were the commands of the Sultan and the Maharaja Lela, they would carry them out. The chief then handed his sword to a man called Pandak Indut, his father-in-law, and directed that everyone should give to him the same obedience as to himself. The people then dispersed. It was one or two days after this that Mr. Birch arrived at Pâsir Sâlak.

Before describing the events of the 2nd November I must go back for a moment.

A number of officers, of whom I was one, had accompanied Sir W. Jervois in his journey to Perak. When the Governor and those with him left the State I was directed to remain behind with Mr. Birch to assist him in his negotiations with the chiefs. A fortnight later I went to Singapore with important papers and the drafts of proclamations defining the authority of the Resident under the new arrangement. These proclamations were printed, and I returned to Perak with them, joining Mr. Birch in his house on the 26th October.

I found the Resident had met with an accident; he had slipped down and so badly sprained his ankle that he could not walk without crutches. Lieut. Abbott, R.N., and four bluejackets were at Bandar Bharu (the Residency), where were also quartered the Sikh guard (about eighty men), the boatmen, and others.

Mr. Birch undertook to distribute the proclamations himself in the down-river districts, and directed me to go up river, to interview the ex-Sultan Ismail, the Raja Muda, the Raja Bĕndahâra, and other up-country chiefs, and, having distributed the proclamations at all important villages from Kôta Lâma downwards, to try to meet him at Pâsir Sâlak on the 3rd November. There, he told me, he expected trouble for which he was quite prepared.

The Sikh guard was in a state bordering on mutiny in the evening of the 27th, but by the following morning they seemed to have returned to their senses, and about noon I left Bandar Bharu with two boats for the interior, Mr. Birch starting down stream at the same time.

He must have got through his part of the work more rapidly than he expected, for he reached Pâsir Sâlak with three boats at midnight on the 1st November, and anchored in midstream. The 1st November was the _Hâri Râya_, the first day after the Fast. At daylight his boats went alongside the bank, and the Resident’s own boat was made fast to the floating bath-house of a Chinese jeweller, whose little shop stood on the high bank a few feet from the riverside. This was the only Chinese house in Pâsir Sâlak.

Mr. Birch was accompanied by Lieut. Abbott, an armed guard of twelve Sikhs, a Sikh orderly, the Malay interpreter (an eminently respectable Malay of nearly fifty named Muhammad Arshad), and a number of Malay boatmen and servants. There must have been about forty people in the party. Mr. Birch had with him a 3-Pr. brass gun, a small mortar, and a number of English firearms and Malay weapons, besides other property.

Directly after their arrival Mr. Abbott borrowed a small boat from the Chinaman and went across the river to Kampong Gâjah to shoot snipe, the Chief of that place, the Dâtoh Sâgor, returning in the boat to Pâsir Sâlak, where he at once sought an interview with Mr. Birch.

After this conversation, which was held in the Resident’s boat, the Dâtoh Sâgor and Mr. Birch’s interpreter went to the Maharaja Lela’s house, and the interpreter said to the Maharaja Lela that the Resident wished to see him and would go to his house for that purpose, but if the Chief preferred it, and would go to Mr. Birch’s boat, he would be glad to meet him there. The Maharaja Lela said, “I have nothing to do with Mr. Birch,” and the interpreter returned to the boat and reported to his master the result of his interview.

The news of the Resident’s arrival had been spread in every direction, and all those in the neighbourhood were ordered to come in. By this time, sixty or seventy men had assembled and were now standing about on the bank of the river close to Mr. Birch’s boats. They were all armed with spears and _krises_, and Mr. Birch asked the Dâtoh Sâgor what they wanted, and that they should be told to stand further away. The Dâtoh told them to move away, and they gave a few yards, but at the same time began to abuse the Resident, calling him an “infidel,” and asking what he meant by coming there asking questions and speaking like one in authority. Probably the Resident did not understand these ominous signs, but his boatmen heard and realised that trouble was brewing.

Mr. Birch now gave some proclamations to the interpreter, who took them on shore and posted them on the shutters of the Chinaman’s shop. Almost immediately, Pandak Indut, the Maharaja Lela’s father-in-law, tore them down and took them off to the Maharaja Lela’s house. That chief’s dictum, was “Pull down the proclamations, and, if they persist in putting them up, kill them.” Then it may be supposed he washed his hands of all responsibility, and Pandak Indut went out to execute his master’s orders.

Meanwhile, Mr. Birch had handed to his interpreter some more proclamations to replace those removed, and, after giving directions to prepare his breakfast, went into the Chinaman’s bath-house to bathe, leaving his Sikh orderly at the door with a loaded revolver. This bath-house was of the type common in Perak, two large logs floating in the stream, fastened together by cross-pieces of wood, and on them built a small house with mat sides about five feet high, and a roof closing on the sides but leaving two open triangular spaces at front and back. The structure is so moored that it floats parallel to the bank, and a person even standing up inside it cannot see what is taking place on the shore close by.

It was now about 10 A.M., and in spite of the threatening attitude of the large crowd of armed Malays standing in groups and passing between the river-bank and their chief’s house, the Resident was composedly bathing in the river, while his people were some of them cooking on the bank, others sleeping in the boats, and a few, the Malays, anxiously expectant, fearing the signs boded a catastrophe.

They had not long to wait. The interpreter was still replacing the proclamations on the Chinaman’s hut, when Pandak Indut and a number of other men came quickly from the Maharaja Lela’s house.

The crowd asked, “What are the Chief’s orders?”

Pandak Indut replied, “He leaves the matter to me.”

Going straight up to the Chinese shop, he began tearing down the newly-posted papers; the interpreter protested, and, seeing no heed was paid to him, turned towards the bath-house. He had not made half a dozen steps, when Pandak Indut overtook him and thrust his spear into the man’s abdomen. The wounded man fell down the bank into the river and caught hold of his master’s boat, but others followed him and cut him over the head and hands, so that he let go and struggled out into the stream.

The interpreter disposed of, Pandak Indut cried out, “Here is Mr. Birch in the bath-house, come, let us kill him,” and, followed by three or four others shouting _âmok, âmok_, they leapt on to the floating timbers and thrust their spears through the open space in the front of the house.

At that time men in the boats could see Mr. Birch’s head above the mat wall; it disappeared without any sound from him, and a moment after he came to the surface of the water astern of the house. Some of the murderers were already waiting there, and one of them, a man called Sipûtum, slashed the Resident over the head with a sword. He sank and was not seen again.

The Sikh orderly, standing with a revolver at the door of the bath-house, jumped into the river without any warning to his master, swam off to one of the boats and saved himself.

The river-bank was now the scene of a general _mêlee_. A Malay boatman and a Sikh had been killed, but the others had got one of the boats away from the bank into midstream and towards it two of Mr. Birch’s Malays were swimming while they supported the grievously wounded interpreter. With difficulty they gained the boat and got the man in. As they dropped down the river Mr. Birch’s coxswain urged the Sikhs to fire on the Malays, but they said they could not do so without an order! He accordingly gave the order, and some shots were fired which for a moment cleared the bank. A small boat with two men in it put out lower down stream to intercept the fugitives, and two of them were wounded by shots from these men. The coxswain then wrenched a rifle from a Sikh and shot one of these assailants. After this the boat proceeded unmolested to Bandar Bharu. Long before they arrived there the interpreter died.

Mr. Abbott, shooting on the other bank, was warned of what had taken place, and with great difficulty got into a dug-out and made his way down stream under the fire of the Malays on the bank.

The attack, the murder of the Resident, his interpreter, the Sikh and the boatman, and the escape of the rest of the party was the work of a few minutes. Whilst still the passion of strife and bloodthirst swayed the crowd, the Maharaja Lela walked into their midst and asked whose hands had done the Resident and his men to death. Instantly Pandak Indut, Sipûtum, and the others, claimed credit for their murderous work. The Chief said, “It is well, none but those who struck blows can share in the spoil.” He then called a man forward and said, “Go and tell the Laksâmana that I have killed Mr. Birch.” The message was delivered the same day, and the Laksâmana said, “Very well, I will tell the Sultan.”

That evening the Maharaja Lela sent a letter to ex-Sultan Ismail describing what he had done, and, to remove any doubt on the subject, he sent with it the Resident’s own boat.

These are the facts about Mr. Birch’s assassination, and it may be of some interest to add that the Resident’s two boats were immediately rifled and all their contents carried up to the Maharaja Lela’s house.

An attack upon the Residency was planned, ordered to be carried out that night, and a number of men started on the expedition, and even got within a few hundred yards of Bandar Bharu; but it began to rain, and a man at whose house the party called told them they would get a warm reception, and it would be quite a different thing to murdering the Resident, so they elected to return with their object unattained.

By the help of a friendly Malay, a foreigner, Mr. Birch’s body was recovered, brought to Bandar Bharu, and there buried on the night of the 6th November.

The Maharaja Lela and his neighbour the Dâtoh Sâgor, having “burnt their ships,” proceeded to stockade their villages, and those stockades were subsequently taken, the rebels driven out, and their villages destroyed.

Sooner or later punishment overtook every man directly concerned in this crime, and also nearly all those who were indirectly responsible. Some fell during the subsequent fighting, one died an outlaw in the jungle.

The first man captured was Sipûtum. He was brought in to Bandar Bharu late one evening in the early part of 1876, and I went to see him in the lock-up about midnight. A wilder looking creature it would have been hard to find. He was a _Pâwang_, a medicine man, a sorcerer. For many weeks he had been a hunted outcast, and he seemed to think that capture was almost preferable to the life he had been leading. He sat on the floor and described to me his share in Mr. Birch’s murder, pausing between the sentences to kill mosquitoes on the wall of his cell. He volunteered the statement that Mr. Birch was a good man, who had been kind to him, and that what he did was by order of his Chief, whom he was bound to obey. The responsibility of the individual for his own actions was a doctrine that was strange to him, and he learnt it too late to profit by it.

In December 1876, the Maharaja Lela, the Dâtoh Sâgor, Pandak Indut, and four others were arraigned before the Raja Muda Jusuf and Raja Alang Husein, and charged with murdering Mr. Birch and the others at Pâsir Sâlak on the 2nd November 1875.

They were prosecuted by Colonel Dunlop, R.A., and myself, on behalf of the Government, and defended by an able and experienced member of the Singapore Bar. After a trial which lasted eight days, they were severally found guilty and condemned to death, but the extreme penalty was exacted only in the cases of the three first named.

Sultan Abdullah, and other Chiefs whose complicity in the assassination was established by the fullest evidence, were banished from the State, and a like sentence was passed upon the ex-Sultan Ismail and some of his adherents.

In Mr. Birch the British Government lost one of its most courageous, able, and zealous officers, but, by the action which his death made necessary, the State of Perak gained in twelve months what ten years of “advice” could hardly have accomplished. That was not all, for the events of those twelve months, when they came to be fully known, threw a light on the inner life of the Malay and his peculiar characteristics, that was in the nature of a revelation. It is all too soon to forget the lesson or disregard its teachings.

XX

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

Haud multum abfuit quin interficeretur

HORACE

_From CAPTAIN SPEEDY, Queen’s Commissioner, Larut, to H.E. SIR WILLIAM JERVOIS, Governor of the Straits._

LARUT, _November 9th, 1875_.

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