Netscher’s Two Sieges of Malacca

Extracted and translated from the 'Daily Journals of the Castle of Malacca', the contents of this book provides a first-hand account of first, the Bugis siege of Malacca by Daeng Kemboja (1756-1757), and secondly, the Bugis siege of Malacca by Raja Haji (1784). It recounts a story of unity and resilience by the people of Malacca and how the different races, European, Eurasian, Malay, Chinese and other Asians, in Dutch Malacca came together in unity to fight a common enemy to preserve the way of life for their communities. Additionally, there are two original article contributions included in this book. The first article entitled 'The Van Braam Collection' by Dennis De Witt is about the books and documents written in Arabic, Malay and Bugis that were captured by Admiral Jacob Pieter van Braam during his attack on Selangor in 1784 and how the collection had made its way to be now kept in the Arabic and Asian collection of a minor library at Deventer, in the Netherlands. The second article entitled 'Malay flags captured in 1784 and their history in the Netherlands' by Bert Lever is about his 10-year long quest which began at the Bukit Melawati Museum in Selangor and continued around the Netherlands to find the original missing flags that were captured by Admiral Jacob Pieter van Braam, which included the original flag belonging to Raja Ibrahim of Selangor.