The district of Larut (with its subdistricts of Krian,
Matang and Selama) lies outside the valley of the Perak River. A narrow tract
of country, situated between the Perak watershed and the sea, it may be said to
have come only within the sphere of influence of the older river-state. Before
the nineteenth century Larut had been virtually a no-man's-land; for the Malay
who loves the banks of great streams saw little to attract him in the desolate
swamp-country by the coast. Of the principal Perak territorial chiefs only one,
the Panglima Bukit Gantang, had any footing in Larut; and he was simply a
warden of the marches guarding the pass that gave access to a large and
isolated district. In 1817 Panglima Alang 'aidin could muster only twelve
muskets at Bukit Gantang to resist the Kedah invaders. But the British
acquisition of Province Wellesley drew attention more and more to the
possibilities of the adjacent districts under Perak rule. In 1861 the Governor
of the Colony congratulated the Sultan of Perak on having leased Krian to a Mr.
Lewis for agriculture for twenty years. The district was beginning to attract
settlers. Larut was in Perak but not of it; it was to owe its population and
prosperity to people from beyond the borders of the state.
The first man to see the great possibilities of Larut was a
certain Long Ja'far. This Ja'far was not (as is usually believed) a shrewd
trader from Penang or Province Wellesley, but a Perak-born Malay, son of a
minor chief, the Dato' Paduka, and grandson of another petty chief, a Dato'
Johan. As his brother had married a daughter of the Panglima Bukit Gantang,
Long Ja'far came to settle near the present township of Taiping. When he
arrived he found that there were only three Chinese to be exploited in the
whole of Larut; but after the discovery of rich mining land he succeeded in
attracting many more adventurers to the place. His first mines were at Kelian Pauh, where the Taipeng gaol now
stands. At a later date an elephant that was being used by the miners escaped
into the Kamunting jungles and when recaptured was found to be covered with mud
rich in tin. The prospecting done by this elephant led to a rush to Kamunting—to
the " new mines," or Kelian
Baharu as the place came to be called.
There is a Malay proverb to the effect that a man need not
forget his own interests when working for the State. Long Ja'far acted up to
this rule. Beginning as a mere representative of the Sultan he bought from his
master one after another the various sources of revenue in the province. On 6
November 1850 he obtained his first title to Larut; he received it from the
Raja Muda Ngah 'Ali (acting for the Sultan), the Temenggong, the Panglimas of
Bukit Gantang and Kinta, the Shahbandar and the Sri Adika Raja. The document
runs:
The Chinese Miners of Larut.
Page 79
" Che' Long Ja'far has opened
up one of the provinces of Perak called Larut and all its rivers to make
tin-mines; this he has done by his own diligence and at his own expense. We
express our entire approval of the diligence he has bestowed and the expense he
has incurred in Larut, and his children shall receive the district as their own
property.... What is written in this deed can never be annulled by
anyone."
On 8 November 1856 the then usurper Sultan, Ngah Ja'far,
(unsupported by any chiefs) confirmed in his own name the Raja Muda's grant.
Long Ja'far died and was succeeded by his son, Che' Ngah Ibrahim, a youngster
in the twenties who applied at once to the Sultan for recognition and was
granted powers even greater than those his father had possessed. The new
deed—dated the 24 May 1858, and bearing the seals of Sultan Ngah Ja'far, the
Raja Muda and the Raja Bendahara—contains the following passages:
" Be it known that after due
deliberation with our princes and chiefs, we bestow a province of this country
of Perak upon Ngah Ibrahim bin Ja'far to be governed by him and to become his
property. Moreover, we make known the boundaries of that dependency to be as
follows: from Larut to Krian and Bagan Tiang—these are the boundaries that make
up the province of Larut ……
" Now we confirm Long Ja'far's
son's Government; and this cannot be revoked—whether Ngah Ibrahim does well or
wickedly—by anyone who may hold the sovereignty of Perak.
" Therefore we endow Ngah
Ibrahim with the power of legislation and give him authority to correspond and
to settle matters with other countries and with the British Government without
reference to us three (the Sultan, Raja Muda and Bendahara) or to anyone who
may hold sovereignty in Perak."
Up to now we have been dealing with titular or official
authority. But the Chinese miners played a very important if informal part in
the real government of Larut. They were immigrants from many different
districts, and were divided by their clannish ideals of patriotism into as many
warring elements. In time these elements formed themselves into coalitions, one
representing four and the other five of the Chinese districts from which the
miners came. Given Chinese clannishness and the party-spirit engendered by
their masonic societies, any petty quarrel between the men of two rival
villages had in it the seeds of a clan-fight, a general riot or even civil war.
It is a hard task to follow the trail of the truth through the maze of the
Larut disturbances, but it is lightened if we keep closely to the main line of
cleavage, that between the
Page 80 A History of Perak.
" Four Districts " 1
who were members of the Ghi Hin Triad Society and the " Five
Districts" 2 who belonged to the Hai San and Toa-Peh-Kong
organizations. The Ghi-Hins were mostly Cantonese, bound by an oath and the
drinking of one another's blood: at initiation a new member swore that at the
Society's order he would attend marriage, funeral or fight, and assist
fellow-members to escape from justice even if guilty of arson, robbery or
murder. In 1867 at Penang there were 25,000 Ghi-Hins or one-fifth of the
Settlement's population. While the Ghi-Hin society was centuries old, the
Toa-Peh-Kong society was instituted by Hokkiens in Penang about 1840 and had
only 5,000 members, the roll including most of the wealthy merchants of Beach
Street and the makers and dealers in arms and ammunition. From the day of its
foundation the Toa-Peh-Kong society had been antagonistic to the Ghi-Hins.
In 1862 the mines at Klian Pauh3 were being
worked by Hai San men under a leader named Chang Keng Kwi while the Kamunting
mines a few miles away were the scene of the labours of Ghi Hin men under So Ah
Chiang. Separation made for peace. But it chanced that some Ghi Hin men were
staying temporarily at Klian Pauh and one of them was imprudent enough to get
mixed up in a brawl in the gaming-saloon. At once there arose the party cry,
" Kill, kill these interlopers "; and fourteen unhappy wretches were
seized and locked up for the night in the lodge of the Hai San Society. Mercy
did not come with the morning. A sharpened bamboo was thrust into each man's throat
so that his life-blood might spurt through to dye the banners of the lodge. One
man only of the fourteen lived to tell the tale. Kamunting was in a ferment at
once. Any luckless Klian Pauh miner who happened to pass through the village
was lynched; and tribal war broke out between the two villages. Both sides
appealed to the Malay head of the district.
Ngah Ibrahim was an opportunist. As soon as he saw that the
Hai-San men (who had begun the disturbances) were the stronger party he threw
in his lot with them, put to death So Ah Chiang, and drove the Ghi Hin men out
of Larut. The dispossessed miners appealed to the British Government.
Colonel Cavenagh, Governor of the Straits, did not disregard
the appeal. He sent a ship of war to the Perak coast to get settlement of a
claim for damages by Go Kuan British subjects, assessed by the Sultan's agent,
the Laksamana, at $17,447.04. When payment was not made, he ordered a blockade
of the coast. Sultan Ja'far could neither pay nor force the Larut chief to pay.
He could only implore Ngah Ibrahim to be reasonable. Ngah Ibrahim offered to
pay if it was made worth his while. He also had been suffering from the
blockade and was prepared to yield, but he asked for a further concession of
authority. The Sultan
1 Si-Kuan.
2 Go-Kuan. 3 Now Taipeng.
The Chinese Miners of Larut.
Page 81
was ready to grant it. Ngah Ibrahim
paid the money in May, 1862, and on 12 June 1862 Sultan Ja'far informed
Governor Cavenagh that Che' Ngah Ibrahim had had restored to him the government
of Larut with full powers and his father-in-law the Laksamana to advise him.
Relieved of anxiety the Governor now wrote to the Sultan, requesting that he
would stick to Low's treaty and not impose a duty of more than $6 a bahar on tin.
On 23 October 1863 Ngah Ibrahim was granted the title of Orang Kaya Mantri, a title of the
highest rank in Perak, and received a document recognising him as ruler of the
whole country from the Krian river in the north to the Bruas river in the
south. " We give the government of the aforesaid entire country to the
Orang Kaya Mantri, whether he acts well or ill, with all its subjects and its
soldiers, its lands and its waters, its timber, its plants and rattans, its damar, its shells, its mines, its hills
and its mountains, and all the immigrants who dwell thereon, whether they be
Chinese or Dutch—with power to frame laws and to admit men to the Muhammadan
religion, to kill, to fine and to pardon and (as our representative) to give in
marriage the guardianless. ... If any man makes disturbances or disowns the
Mantri's authority, he commits a sin against God, against Muhammad and against
Us. If he disown the Mantri, we will seize his property; if he resist the
Mantri, we will kill him."
On 31 March 1864 after due deliberation with rajas and
chiefs Sultan Ja'far " bestowed a dependency of the country of Perak upon
Ngah Ibrahim bin Ja'far to be governed by him. ... He can govern them as he
pleases and make any laws he thinks fit... . The wishes and laws of Ngah Ibrahim
are our own laws also. Let every one remember this and do not dispute the laws
of Ngah Ibrahim bin Ja'far."
Had Ngah Ibrahim now got a freehold title and absolute
possession of Larut or was he merely enjoying the usufruct of the province in
accordance with the usual Malay law of land tenure and so long as he could
govern it effectually? He claimed absolute right, though in 1874 at Pangkor
Thomas Braddell advised that he enjoyed only the usufruct and had forfeited
that by his mal-administration.
For the moment Ngah Ibrahim was the actual ruler of Larut.
Had he been of royal birth, he might have been accepted by all as an
independent prince, but the lack of this condition prejudiced his claim to
sovereignty. Among Europeans he was known as the " Raja of Larut " or
as the " Mantri of Larut." Among Malays his office gave him a right
to the designation of tengku, a title
given generally to royalty, but in Perak to the highest commoner chiefs. His
seal suggested his pretensions. In short his position was one which an able man
might have converted in time into a Sultanate; but it exposed its holder to the
feelings of jealousy and
Page 82 A History of Perak.
hatred that dog the nouveau riche. Ngah Ibrahim was not
quite equal to the opportunities that had come his way. He was a man of ability
and ambition; he built a road, maintained a small police force, and made some
slight effort to govern the country on European lines, while at the same time
he strove to earn popularity among his countrymen by entertaining all comers
lavishly at his home near Bukit Gantang. A Malay, it was natural that he should
overvalue the applause and support of the Malays while he under-rated the
strength and intelligence of the Chinese. He knew that the miners could have no
political ambitions in a desolate country which they visited only for
money-making. He misread the lesson of 1862 into thinking that even if
clan-fights arose they must end in the destruction of one or other party and
the further assertion of Malay predominance. Drawing a large revenue (some
$200,000 a year or more) from his dominion over Larut he was content to
maintain his authority with a force of not more than 40 constables and to leave
his 40,000 Chinese subjects to govern themselves through their own masonic
lodges. They lived unmolested in their mining-camps; he was content to hold the
toll-stations on the coast and levy duty on all exports and imports.
The conditions of life in 'the mining-camps were
discreditable to all concerned. The annual death rate was about fifty per
cent.; it was heaviest among coolies engaged in clearing the jungle or in
opening new mines. High rates of profit attracted others to fill vacancies; but
those rates were misleading. The mine-owners received as royalty in kind a
large percentage of the tin mined by the coolies, bought the rest of the tin at
rates below the market-price, supplied the coolies with the necessaries of life
at a very high figure, and owned the opium saloons and gambling dens in which
the coolies' surplus gains were dissipated The coolies perished, but the
mine-owners became wealthy men and soon left the hard life of Larut for the
amenities of Chinese society in Penang. The local control of the mines passed
from the wealthy owners to impecunious and irresponsible relatives and
attorneys who were bent on becoming rich in their turn. At the time of the
troubles in 1862 the leading Hai-San Chinese at Klian Pauh was Chang Keng Kwi;
and the Ghi Hin leader who succeeded So Ah Chiang at Kamunting was Ho Ghi Siu.
Ten years later both these leaders were wealthy residents of Penang; and their
mines were managed by their attorneys. Li Ah Kun, Ghi Siu's attornev, was
accused of an intrigue with the wife of a near relative of Ah Kwi. This scandal
came to light at a time when the passions of both sides were inflamed by a
boundary dispute. Ah Kwi's men seized Li Ah Kun and the accused lady, placed
each of them in one of the crate-like baskets used by Chinese for the transport
of pigs; and, after marching them about for some time in this ignominious
guise, ended by submerging the pair in the waters of a disused alluvial mine
and holding them there till life was extinct. This outrage caused Ho Ghi Siu's
men to take up
The Chinese Miners of Larut. Page 83
arms at once. The elders of the
great lodges intervened. To avoid the losses entailed by clan-fights a system
of arbitration had been set up; and it was agreed that a sum of $2,000 should
be paid by instalments as compensation to the heirs of Li Ah Kun. The first
instalment was paid. Before the second instalment could be paid a further
dispute had arisen and had led to riots. There was now a small civil war in
Larut.
The Hai-San miners outnumbered the Ghi Hin in the proportion
of nearly two to one. In the riots of 1862 they had driven their opponents out
of the country; and since that time they had always been supported by the
Mantri as they were the stronger side. The Ghi Hin miners had taken the lesson
to heart. Numerically the weaker, they had prepared for war by laying in
supplies of munitions and engaging professional fighting men. These men made a
bold attack upon the over-confident Hai-San miners, drove them out of their
camps, and hustled them into the Mantri's fort at Matang. By 26 March 1872 the
Ghi Hin (or Si-Kuan) faction had completely beaten the Hai San (or Go-Kuan)
faction.
The Mantri was in a dilemma. He had supported the Hai-San
men since 1862 in the belief that their superior numbers made them the stronger
party. He found now that he had backed the wrong side. He had the mortification
of seeing the Larut mines, the source of his revenues, in the hands of enemies;
and he wrote at once to Sir Harry Ord, the Governor of the Straits, to explain
that he had permitted the ingress of professional fighters because he
understood that they were to be used for fighting only the miners, but that
they had proved to be " bad men " who were prepared to fight anybody
and had even attacked his Malay police. Meanwhile he engaged (at a cost of
$15,000) junks and other transport to take the Hai-San refugees to Penang. As
soon as he had got rid of their embarrassing presence he began to make
overtures to the victorious Ghi Hin. He was indifferent which side won, so long
as he continued to receive the revenues of Larut.
As soon as the Hai-San miners reached a haven of safety in
Penang, they began to petition Governor Ord for redress. Governor Ord sent the
petitions to the Mantri, and expressed the hope that " his friend " would
do what was right in the matter. " His friend " could not do
anything. The Hai-San miners had brought expulsion on themselves: it takes two
sides to make a riot, and their side was not the weaker. Some non-committal
answer had to be sent, so the Mantri replied by saying that the petitioners'
statements were untrue. Sir Harry Ord in his turn pointed out to the Hai-San
men that Larut lay outside his jurisdiction and that the British Government had
no right to interfere.
It was a weak line to take. The passions aroused by
blood-shed and civil war cannot be calmed by legal quibbles or by a policy of laisser faire. The Hai-San miners in
Penang turned from
Page 84 A History of Perak.
the written to the unwritten law and
began to buy arms and ammunition with a view to the reconquest of their
property. They even attempted the life of their chief enemy, the Ghi Hin leader
Ho Ghi Siu, at his Penang residence. It was now the turn of the Mantri and of
Ho Ghi Siu to appeal to the British Government against the policy of laisser faire. They begged Sir Harry Ord
and the Acting Lieutenant-Governor to put an end to the conspiracies against
the peace of Larut. To add to the confusion, Raja Muda 'Abdu'llah of Perak, who
claimed to be the rightful Sultan, angry because the Mantri supported Sultan
Isma'il, gave written authority to the victorious Ghi Hins to fight vigorously,
promising if they won to defray half their expenses and lease them the Larut
mines! He even gave them his seal which a Ghi-Hin baker affixed to a letter to
the Lieutenant-Governor, Penang! Again just before the death of Sultan 'Ali,
'Abdu'llah, angry because the Mantri would not give him money, granted a needy
Eurasian, Mr. Bacon, a fifteen years' lease of the Krian farms for $5,500 a
year. Bacon wanted the Mantri's signature but the Mantri reported it to Sultan
'Ali, who published a notice in the Penang paper that he annulled the lease as
no one but the Sultan could give it. Now in 1872 Bacon, still anxious to
recover his money, was trying to levy taxes on rice, wood and rattans as well
as a head tax in the north of Larut, showing documents from 'Abdu'llah and the
Mantri selling him the farms over an area of 800 square miles for $2,000! Mr.
(later Sir) George W. R. Campbell, Acting Lieutenant-Governor of Penang, warned
Abdu'llah and Bacon not to break the law.
For the Hai-Sans warnings were useless. A red-faced Hai-San
Chinese brought a bogus action for debt against the Mantri and seized his
warship, the Betara Bayu, under an
order of the court, at the very moment when the Hai-San junks set sail. The
acting Lieutenant-Governor could do nothing to stop them. On 16 October 1872 he
followed the little armada with his seven marine policemen; but as the junks
cleared for action and " seemed very determined," he did not like to
take the responsibility for violent measures. On 18 October he returned to
Penang and let the miners fight it out. By the time that the order of court had
done its work and the Mantri's steamer had been released, the Hai-San junks had
reached Larut and were taking full advantage of the opportunities their legal
advisers had put in their way. When the Hai-San junks first arrived off the
coast the Ghi Hin leaders had left their mining-camps and were at Matang
discussing the appointment of a Capitan
China. For the moment their men were leaderless and could not resist the
well-organized surprise attack made upon them. Hundreds perished in the
fighting; several hundred more died of exposure or privation in the jungle. In
October 1872 two thousand refugees found their way to Penang, of whom more than
a hundred were wounded. All the Ghi-Hin women fell into the hands of their
enemies. A few preferred suicide to dishonour; the rest were divided
The Chinese Miners of Larut.
Page 85
up between the Hai-San headmen and
the Mantri's chiefs, for (the Mantri had taken up once more his old policy of
siding with the victors.
The influx of wounded and ruined fugitives and the fate of
their womenfolk roused the Ghi Hin faction in Penang to passionate wrath.
Reconciliation was impossible. There was no serious appeal to the Governor who
on 26 October issued a proclamation calling attention to Sections 125 and 126
of the Penal Code! The Ghi Hin leader, Ho Ghi Siu, bought up junks and enlisted
fighting-men in order to beat his opponents at their own game. In December,
1872, he raided the Larut coast and seized Matang. That was as far as he could
go. The strength of the Hai San miners and the difficult character of the
country made it impossible for him to reconquer the mines. He then changed his
methods. He began to blockade the coast. No tin could be exported, no food
imported. Early in January the Fair
Malacca, a small vessel flying the British flag, was fired at by the Ghi
Hin junks and forbidden to enter the Larut river. As no blockade by such
lawless belligerents could be regarded as legal, the senior naval officer
(Captain Denison) was called upon as " a policeman of the seas" to
seize the junks that had been guilty of this " piratical attack " on
the Fair Malacca. On entering the
Larut river he found a number of vessels fully manned and armed, with
boarding-nets ready and stinkpots at their mastheads. Their crews described
themselves merely as Ho Ghi Siu's men. No resistance was offered when Captain
Denison seized two junks which were recognized as having taken part in the
" attack," and there was no protest beyond a request that the
treatment might be meted out by Captain Denison to Hai San men also.
The seizure of these junks did not end the blockade but it
changed its character. The Ghi Hin leaders abandoned junk-warfare for the use
of long war-boats or war-canoes, each manned by twenty or twenty-five men.
These boats could escape with ease from any cutter or war-junk or heavy
steam-launch; their range of action was great owing to their light draught and
the length of the inland waterways; and their powers of offence were serious
when they were massed in any numbers in a tortuous and narrow tidal river. The
war became a river-war. The coast of Larut is a maze of interlaced tidal creeks
and rivers, which enabled the boats to raid the sugar-plantations and
fishing-villages as well as the mines, to spread the area of disturbance, and
to interfere still further with the Hai San food-supplies. Distress was acute
both among the Hai San men in the mines and among the Ghi Hin men in the boats,
who in their turn were being denied access to the sea. Bloodshed was not great,
as the fightingmen were out for loot rather than for slaughter; still, once at
least a war-boat was seen to be carrying a ghastly cargo of newly-severed human
heads.
Page 86 A History of Perak.
Early in 1873 the Mantri had decided that Larut was not a
safe place of residence for a trimmer. He moved to the lower reaches of the
Krian river (which then formed the boundary between the Colony and Perak); and
to make escape into Colonial territory still easier, he lived in a boat. In
February he recognised 'Abdu'llah as Sultan, while 'Abdullah recognised him as
Mantri. In April 'Abdu'llah came to the Krian river. The Chinese leaders had
ceased to pay for legal whitewash, de
jure rights and the help of helpless Malay chiefs. On board the Mantri's
little steamer 'Abdu'llah even conferred the title of Raja Muda on his old
rival Raja Yusuf. On April 14 " Sultan " 'Abdu'llah and the Laksamana
signed a document containing the following passage:—" We acknow-ledge and
confirm the Orang Kaya Mantri, even as before so during our reign, to hold for
ever the Government of Larut and its dependencies. This cannot be
changed." But they fell out again a few weeks later. In July the Mantri
had secured the services of Captain Speedy of the Penang police and sent him to
India to recruit sepoys.
The period from February to August, 1873, was one of serious
anxiety for the British authorities. River war-fare was going on; raids were
common; the fighting was coming closer and closer to the British border. The
roving bands were beginning to attach themselves to individual leaders or to
plunder indiscriminately without any leader at all. It was ceasing to be a
question of " Ghi Hin " or " Hai San " : a band of ruffians
flying a red flag with a white border would be recognized as " Koh Bu An's
men "; a black flag with a red border indicated that they were " Ho
Ghi Siu's men ": and so on. Other bands were openly piratical. Clan-fights
and fights on a small scale between the partisans of Chinese " towkays
" began to take place in Penang and were assisted by a close alliance
between certain local lawyers and the Larut belligerents. Convictions were hard
to obtain in a country where false witnesses could be suborned and witnesses of
truth terrified into silence. The lawyers could always give the whole piratical
struggle a coating of legal whitewash by securing for the marauders the
patronage of some de-jure Malay
Chief. If a Cantonese professional free-booter happened to be caught plundering
a trading-junk, the capture was usually followed by a lawyer's letter saying
that the freebooter was a soldier employed by the " Sultan "
(Abdullah) or by " the Raja" (the Mantri), as the case might be.
Indeed at a later date the captain of one of Her Majesty's ships found a Penang
solicitor living in a piratical stockade on the Larut river, and expressed very
bluntly his disbelief of the lawyer's assurance that he was there for
amusement.
In August, 1873, the fear of Chinese civil war in Penang
forced Lieutenant-Governor Anson to take action. On 10 August he called a
meeting of rival leaders at his office. There were present: the Mantri, Raja
'Abdu'llah, Ho Ghi Siu (Ghi Hin),
The Chinese Miners of Larut. Page 87
and Chang Ah Kwi (Hai San), besides
Captain Grant of the Midge and Tengku
Zia-u'd-din, Regent of Selangor. The Lieutenant-Governor induced both parties
to consent to an armistice pending arbitration by himself. But it was one thing
to agree in Penang to an armistice, and quite another matter to get the Larut
belligerents to lay down their arms. The only member of the conference who was
prepared to attempt the impossible was Raja 'Abdu'llah who had nothing to lose
and whose assurances were taken too seriously. He started at once for Larut on
board H.M.S. Midge, and issued the
following proclamation:
'' Having signed an agreement with the Tengku Mantri of
Larut, yesterday the 10th day of August, 1873, in the presence of the
Honourable Colonel Anson, Lieutenant-Governor of Penang; Tengku Zia-u'd-din,
Viceroy of Selangor; Commander Grant of H.M.S.
Midge; Ho Ghi Siu; Sayid Zin; Chang
Ah Kwi; Tengku Yusuf and others;—to the effect that we intend to put an end to
the hostilities that are at present going on at Larut, I hereby order you the
Headmen of the Sin-Neng, Teo-Chiu and Hui-Chiu factions, with your armed junks
and boats to come out of the rivers and creeks of Larut with all possible
despatch, and come and anchor close to H.M.S.
Midge, now anchored outside the Larut
River. If you fail to obey this order you must take the consequences. Again, if
you have disputes to settle, the headmen and towkays of either faction can go
to Penang and refer the disputes to the Lieutenant-Governor. Lastly I order
that all your headmen and towkays who are now at Larut will come on board the Midge, and meet me."
Raja 'Abdu'llah had counted on the help of Ho Ghi Siu, whose
word was law in Ghi Hin circles. Ho Ghi Siu was in no mood to support his
" chief "; he gave every one the slip and stayed behind in Penang.
Raja 'Abdu'llah made excuses but was afraid to admit his weakness. He went
unwillingly to Larut, refused to land lest his " followers " should
fire on him, and declined to authorize any attempt to force a passage into the
river. Though the Midge was
accompanied by two steamers full of rice for the starving miners, the whole
flotilla had to return to Penang with its mission unfulfilled. The Ghi Hin men
refused to lay down their arms.
On 14 August Captain Grant returned to Penang and reported
what had happened. Raja 'Abdu'llah wrote as follows to Colonel Anson: "We
inform our friend that we went to Larut in the Midge, accompanied by the Mantri. We wished to put a stop to the
Chinese disturbances at Larut, but the towkays and headmen did not go with us;
moreover at the time we met our friend we stated that if those headmen did not
go with us we should be unable to settle the disturbances. At the present time
we are not well enough to meet our friend. When we have recovered we will come
and meet our friend."
Page 88 A History of Perak.
The failure of this attempt to settle matters by arbitration
put Ho Ghi Siu and his Ghi Hin associates in the wrong. Colonel Anson turned to
the other side, telegraphed to Governor Ord (who left at once for Penang), and
approved of the Mantri's plan to recruit Indian troops and employ Captain
Speedy of the Penang police for service in Larut. Raja 'Abdu'llah was furious.
On 2 August he wrote two letters protesting against the employment of British
subjects in Perak and deposing he Mantri from all his offices:—
" How often have we told the Mantri to step in and end
the disturbances created by these Chinese? But the Chinese go on making
trouble, and the Mantri will not hearken to our advice. He has left Larut and
is now living in Penang where he hatches deep-laid schemes aiming at dominion
over all Perak. Larut is become a waste; and as for Ngah Ibrahim bin Ja'far, a
native of Perak and a slave of our father and of us, great indeed is his sin
towards us. He is a traitor to us and does not pay allegiance to Perak.
Moreover he calls himself Tengku,
which means that he is the son of a great Raja; and he has made himself a
larger seal, putting on it Paduka Seri
Maharaja Ibrahim bin Ja'far Manteri Perak, which is a great crime under the
customary law of Perak. Now therefore from Wednesday 21 August, 1873, we annul
all the powers that he has received from former Sultans and the powers that he
has received from us, and all his titles. Never again may he hold sway in any
province of Perak."
When Governor Ord arrived at Penang he answered this letter
by inviting Raja 'Abdullah to a conference on Larut affairs. The Raja replied
on 2 September, " We also would like very much to meet our friend; but we
are unable to do so this time as we are suffering from a slight sickness; so we
send our Panglima Besar along with our lawyer to the meeting." But the
Governor had no wish to meet these gentlemen.
On 3 September 1873 Sir Henry Ord took the decisive step of
recognizing the Mantri as the independent ruler of Larut and of throwing the
whole weight of British support on the side of that chief and of the Hai-San
Chinese. " As I am satisfied, from the various documents which the Orang
Kaya Mantri has produced, that he is the lawful ruler of Larut and, as such,
independent of the Sultan or any authority in Perak, he will now be recognized
by the Government as the independent ruler of Larut." This decision was
conveyed to the Mantri in a letter dated 5 September, and was repeated in an
ambiguous way in the Legislative Council on 9th September. The Governor also
repealed in the Mantri's favour the proclamation forbidding the export of arms
to Larut.
The dependence of Larut on Perak meant divided authority,
rival leaders and a continuance of civil war. Sir Harry Ord hoped to restore order
in Larut by depriving the recalcitrant Ghi Hin
The Chinese Miners of Larut.
Page 89
party of its supplies of arms and
ammunition and by permitting the Mantri to recruit troops and buy military
stores. The plan was good in a limited way. Its success could not be immediate,
and it failed to remove the real grievances of the Ghi Hin whose mines and
women-folk were to be left in the possession of those very doubtful guardians
of law and order the Hai-San miners and the Mantri.
The disturbances continued. On 12 and 13 September Malay
vessels were plundered and their sailors killed. On 15 September Captain Grant
of the Midge was proceeding up the
Larut river in his gig, followed by a small Malay schooner, when he was
attacked by two Ghi Hin warboats. The Malay at the schooner's tiller left his
post at the first sign of danger and allowed his vessel to fly up into the wind
and run aground. While the naval men were trying to get the schooner off the
mudbank they were subjected to a heavy fire and returned to the Midge with two young officers wounded.
The Midge then went back to Penang.
Meanwhile Raja 'Abdu'llah and his Ghi Hin friends had not
been idle. On 15 September some of the latter blew up the Mantri's private
residence at Penang, wounding five men and killing a policeman. Two days later
Raja 'Abdu'llah wrote that some Ghi Hin men had been unlucky enough to wound
two British officers of the Midge while
defending themselves against a piratical attack by the Mantri, and he asked
that vengeance might be taken on the Mantri as the real culprit. But in spite
of this explanation and of the outcries of the Ghi Hin lawyer, the Midge and the Thalia shelled the stockades at Selinsing, captured two junks and a
longboat, and inflicted serious losses on the " pirates." On that
same day a small Malay trader was attacked by warboats; six of the crew were
killed or wounded and the sum of $544 was carried off. On 22 September Raja
'Abdu'llah suddenly appeared on the scene in a steamer; he also was captured
and taken back to Penang. On 29 September Captain Speedy sailed for Larut with
a flotilla of two steamers and fifteen small sailing-craft to convey arms,
munitions and stores to the Hai San miners. Raja Yusuf, whom 'Abdu'llah had
left in charge of Bukit Gantang fled, and Speedy occupied it. The Ghi Hin
miners temporarily cowed and driven from the coast did not lay down their arms
and were still formidable. Lieutenant-Governor Anson kept complaining that the
Mantri and Captain Speedy were more intent on working the mines than on
suppressing piracy; the Mantri replied that he was strong enough to hold the
mines but not to put an end to the warboats. Governor Ord left the country and
Sir Andrew Clarke succeeded him. The Ghi Hin men had not been hunted down, but
they were being blockaded and starved. To seaward lay the British gunboats; to
landward were Captain Speedy and his Sikhs. The end was merely a matter of
time. On 20 January 1874 at Pangkor the headmen of both Chinese factions signed
an agreement to pay Her Majesty
Page 90 A History of Perak.
Queen Victoria $50,000 if they
failed to live in Larut peaceably and in accordance with the law. They
consented to have their forces disarmed and their stockades destroyed. On 23
February the Commissioners appointed for this latter task (Captain Dunlop,
Messrs. F. A. Swettenham and W. A. Pickering) reported that it was done. The
Commissioners also rescued and restored to their relatives a large number of
Chinese women, including one taken as a concubine by the Mantri, who complained
that she had been beaten not only by her lord's wife but also by the Mantri
himself, unstable in love as in policy.
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