ne.

Whether the three sultans maintain a struggle of hostile rivalship, or
act with an appearance of concert, as holding the nominal sovereignty
under a species of joint-regency, I am not informed, but each of them in
the preamble of his letters assumes all the royal titles, without any
allusion to competitors; and although their power and resources are not
much beyond those of a common raja they do not fail to assert all the
ancient rights and prerogatives of the empire, which are not disputed so
long as they are not attempted to be carried into force. Pompous
dictatorial edicts are issued and received by the neighbouring states
(including the European chiefs of Padang), with demonstration of profound
respect, but no farther obeyed than may happen to consist with the
political interests of the parties to whom they are addressed. Their
authority in short resembles not a little that of the sovereign pontiffs
of Rome during the latter centuries, founded as it is in the superstition
of remote ages; holding terrors over the weak, and contemned by the
stronger powers. The district of Suruwasa, containing the site of the old
capital, or Menangkabau proper, seems to have been considered by the
Dutch as entitled to a degree of pre-eminence; but I have not been able
to discover any marks of superiority or inferiority amongst them. In
distant parts the schism is either unknown, or the three who exercise the
royal functions are regarded as co-existing members of the same family,
and their government, in the abstract, however insignificant in itself,
is there an object of veneration. Indeed to such an unaccountable excess
is this carried that every relative of the sacred family, and many who
have no pretensions to it assume that character, are treated wherever
they appear, not only with the most profound respect by the chiefs who go
out to meet them, fire salutes on their entering the dusuns, and allow
them to level contributions for their maintenance; but by the country
people with such a degree of superstitious awe that they submit to be
insulted, plundered, and even wounded by them, without making resistance,
which they would esteem a dangerous profanation. Their appropriate title
(not uncommon in other Malayan countries) is Iang de per-tuan, literally
signifying he who ruleth.

A person of this description, who called himself Sri Ahmed Shah, heir to
the empire of Menangkabau, in consequence of some differences with the
Dutch,