MALAY SKETCHES
actions was a doctrine that was strange to him, and he learnt it too late to profit by it.
In December 1876, the Maharaja Lela, the Dātoh 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 Sâlak on the and November 1875.
They were prosecuted by Coloncl 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 Ismai] 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 years of “advice” could hardly have accomplished.
That was not all, for the events of those twelve
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