in his ports. Even at this early period of his
reign he had abolished some vexatious imposts. Mr. Braham had an
opportunity of learning the great degree of power and control possessed
by certain of the orang kayas, who held their respective districts in
actual sovereignty, and kept the city in awe by stopping, when it suited
their purpose, the supplies of provisions. Captain Forrest, who once more
visited Achin in 1784 and was treated with much distinction (see his
Voyage to the Mergui Archipelago page 51), says he appeared to be
twenty-five years of age; but this was a misconception. Mr. Kenneth
Mackenzie, who saw him in 1782, judged him to have been at that time no
more than nineteen or twenty, which corresponds with Mr. Braham's
statement.)

Little is known of the transactions of his reign, but that little is in
favour of his personal character. The Annals (not always unexceptionable
evidence when speaking of the living monarch) describe him as being
endowed with every princely virtue, exercising the functions of
government with vigour and rectitude, of undaunted courage, attentive to
the protection of the ministers of religion, munificent to the
descendants of the prophet (seiyid, but commonly pronounced sidi) and to
men of learning, prompt at all times to administer justice, and
consequently revered and beloved by his people. I have not been enabled
to ascertain the year in which he died.

1791.

It appears by a Malayan letter from Achin that in 1791 the peace of the
capital was much disturbed, and the state of the government as well as of
private property (which induced the writer to reship his goods)
precarious.

1805.

In 1805 his son, then aged twenty-one, was on the throne, and had a
contention with his paternal uncle, and at the same time his
father-in-law, named Tuanku Raja, by whom he had been compelled to fly
(but only for a short time) to Pidir, the usual asylum of the Achinese
monarchs. Their quarrel appears to have been rather of a family than of a
political nature, and to have proceeded from the irregular conduct of the
queen-mother. The low state of this young king's finances, impoverished
by a fruitless struggle to enforce, by means of an expensive marine
establishment, his right to an exclusive trade, had induced him to make
proposals, for mutual accommodation, to the English government of Pulo
Pinang.*

(*Footnote. Since the foregoing was printed the following information
respecting the ma