(Footnote.  Captain Forrest acquaints us that he visited the court of Mahomed Selim (the latter name is not given to this prince by any other writer) in the year 1764, at which time he appeared to be about forty years of age.  It is difficult to reconcile this date with the recorded events of this unfortunate reign, and I have doubts whether it was not the usurper whom the Captain saw.)

He was exposed however to further revolutions.  About six years after his restoration the palace was attacked in the night by a desperate band of two hundred men, headed by a man called Raja Udah, and he was once more obliged to make a precipitate retreat.  This usurper took the title of sultan Suliman shah, but after a short reign of three months was driven out in his turn and forced to fly for refuge to one of the islands in the eastern sea.  The nature of his pretensions, if he had any, have not been stated, but he never gave any further trouble.  From this period Muhammed maintained possession of his capital, although it was generally in a state of confusion.

1772.

“In the year 1772,” says Captain Forrest, “Mr. Giles Holloway, resident of Tappanooly, was sent to Achin by the Bencoolen government, with a letter and present, to ask leave from the king to make a settlement there.  I carried him from his residency.  Not being very well on my arrival, I did not accompany Mr. Holloway (a very sensible and discreet gentleman, and who spoke the Malay tongue very fluently) on shore at his first audience; and finding his commission likely to prove abortive I did not go to the palace at all.  There was great anarchy and confusion at this time; and the malcontents came often, as I was informed, near the king’s palace at night.”

1775.

The Captain further remarks that when again there in 1775 he could not obtain an audience.

1781.

The Annals report his death to have happened on the 2nd of June 1781, and observe that from the commencement to the close of his reign the country never enjoyed repose.  His brother, named Ala-eddin (or Uleddin, as commonly pronounced, and which seems to have been a favourite title with the Achinese princes), was in exile at Madras during a considerable period, and resided also for some time at Bencoolen.

The eldest son of the deceased king, then about eighteen years of age, succeeded him on the 16th of the same month, by the title of Ala-eddin Mahmud shah Juhan, in spite of an opposition attempted to be raised by the partisans of another son by a favourite wife.  Weapons had been drawn in the court before the palace, when the tuanku agung or high priest, a person of great respectability and influence, by whom the former had been educated, came amidst the crowd, bareheaded and without attendance, leading his pupil by the hand.  Having placed himself between the contending factions, he addressed them to the following effect:  that the prince who stood before them had a natural right