A Coastal Attack

Four hundred and six years ago, today, according to British anthropologist Walter Skeat (writing in 1899), naval forces sent by the Maharajah of Johor bombarded Trengganu coast but was thwarted by the local holy man Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Amudi who paced back and forth on the shore of Kuala Trengganu, creating an illusion to the attackers of many men assembling for war.

Skeat of course dismised this ‘wonder’ of Sheikh Ibrahim as nothing more than local legend, but even in his clinical dissection of the event, he was wrong in his assumption that it was Johor that attacked Trengganu. Here, for instance, is a report from the “Imperial Parliament” that I found in the Belfast News Letter of Saturday, July 11, 1863, about the event —

"ATTACK ON TRINGANU
"Sir J. HAY called attention to the attack on Tringanu, the chief town of a province of Siam [sic], on the 12th November last, made by British forces from Singapore, in order to obtain the person of a certain ex- Sultan who was residing at that place and whom it appeared, the authorities of Tringanu and the Court of Siam were willing to surrender without hostile demonstration..”

The Birmingham Daily Post on the same day had this to add —

”...The act had been condemned by Sir James Brooke as a cruel injustice, and there could be no doubt the impolicy of bombarding a friendly power without a declaration of war.
"Sir C. WOOD said he had not yet received a full report of the transaction from the Indian government, but the information already in his possession enabled him to say that attacks of this sort were of a questionable, and in this particular instance, of a very precipitate character...
"Mr LIDDELL thought the time had arrived when the House ought to put a stop to constant interference in the quarrels of native Princes in the eastern seas.
"The subject then dropped."

The attack took place during the reign of Baginda Omar who came back to Trengganu from Lingga after the death of Sultan Mansur II (the man who defeated him in the battle for the Trengganu throne in 1831). Omar fought a long battle with the forces of Mansur's successor, his 15-year old son Sultan Muhammad. It was not until 1839, when the young Muhammad's forces withdrew to Kelantan that Baginda Omar was able to take the Trengganu throne, from where he ruled with great success until his death in 1876. He was, by all accounts, an enlightened ruler who contributed much to Trengganu’s development.

I shall have to look further to find out who the ex Sultan was whose sanctuary in Trengganu had caused such anger in the Maharajah of Johor that he had to invite the trigger-happy Brits in Singapore to bombard Trengganu's coast. In the meantime, if you have any information on this attack on Trengganu — "A cruel injustice," said Sir James Brooke — please do write.