1699.

This queen was deposed by her subjects (whose grounds of complaint are not stated) about the latter part of the year 1699, after reigning also eleven years; and with her terminated the female dynasty, which, during its continuance of about fifty-nine years, had attracted much notice in Europe.

Her successor was named Beder al-alum sherif Hasham, the nature of whose pretensions to the crown does not positively appear, but there is reason to believe that he was her brother.  When he had reigned a little more than two years it pleased God (as the Annals express it) to afflict him with a distemper which caused his feet and hands to contract (probably the gout) and disqualified him for the performance of his religious duties.

1702.

Under these circumstances he was induced to resign the government in 1702, and died about a month after his abdication.

Perkasa-alum, a priest, found means by his intrigues to acquire the sovereignty, and one of his first acts was to attempt imposing certain duties on the merchandise imported by English traders, who had been indulged with an exemption from all port charges excepting the established complimentary presents upon their arrival and receiving the chap or licence.  This had been stipulated in the treaty made by Sir James Lancaster, and renewed by Mr. Grey when chief of the Company’s factory.  The innovation excited an alarm and determined opposition on the part of the masters of ships then at the place, and they proceeded (under the conduct of Captain Alexander Hamilton, who published an account of his voyage in 1727) to the very unwarrantable step of commencing hostilities by firing upon the villages situated near the mouth of the river, and cutting off from the city all supplies of provisions by sea.  The inhabitants, feeling severely the effects of these violent measures, grew clamorous against the government, which was soon obliged to restore to these insolent traders the privileges for which they contended.

1704.

Advantage was taken of the public discontents to raise an insurrection in favour of the nephew of the late queen, or, according to the Annals, the son of Beder al-alum (who was probably her brother), in the event of which Perkasa-alum was deposed about the commencement of the year 1704, and after an interregnum or anarchy of three months continuance, the young prince obtained possession of the throne, by the name of Jemal al-alum.  From this period the native writers furnish very ample details of the transactions of the Achinese government, as well as of the general state of the country, whose prosperous circumstances during the early part of this king’s reign are strongly contrasted with the misery and insignificance to which it was reduced by subsequent events.  The causes and progress of this political decline cannot be more satisfactorily set forth than in a faithful translation of the Malayan narrative which was drawn up, or extracted from a larger work, for my use, and is distinct from the Annals already mentioned: