Page 262 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES

actions was a doctrine that was strange to him,
and he learnt it too late to profit by it.
In December the Maharaja Lela, the
1876,
Datoh Sagor, 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 Pasir Salak 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 com-
plicity 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
" "
of advice could have
years hardly accomplished.
That was not all, for the events of those twelve
246