XI.
Singapore.
Stay from 15th to 21st April, 1858.
Position of the Island.—Its previous history.—Sir Stamford Raffles' propositions to make it a port of the British Government free to all sea-faring nations.—The Island becomes part of the Crown property of England.—Extraordinary development under the auspices of a Free Trade policy.—Our stay shortened in consequence of the severity of the cholera.—Description of the city.—Tigers.—Gambir.—The Betel plantations.—Inhabitants.—Chinese and European labour.—Climate.—Diamond merchants.—Preparation of Pearl Sago.—Opium farms.—Opium manufacture.—Opium-smokers.—Intellectual activity.—Journalism.—Logan's "Journal of the Indian Archipelago."—School for Malay children.—Judicial procedure.—Visit to the penal settlement for coloured criminals.—A Chinese provision-merchant at business and at home.—Fatal accident on board.—Departure from Singapore.—Difficulty in passing through Caspar Straits.—Sporadic outbreak of cholera on board.—Death of one of the ship's boys.—First burial at sea.—Sea-snakes.—Arrival in the Roads of Batavia.
The island of Singapore or Singhapura[27] is situated at the southernmost point of the peninsula of Malacca, from which it is only separated by a strait nowhere above a mile in breadth.
It is about 29 1⁄3 statute miles in length from east to west, by 16 3⁄5 in breadth from north to south. The superficial area of the island is estimated at 206 square geographical miles, which will make it about one half larger than the Isle of Wight.
Up to the year 1819, Singapore was a howling wilderness, and the only settlement upon its shores was a couple of wretched Malay fishermen's huts; a lurking-place for the pirates, who at that period made it dangerous to navigate those waters. After the rendition of the Dutch colonies in the Indian Archipelago, which it will be remembered were the property of England throughout the great continental war up to the year 1814, Sir Stamford Raffles, the former Governor of Java, was intrusted with the office of founding on it, as the most suitable spot in all the Malay seas, a free emporium where the general trade in those seas of all the sea-faring nations of the world might be concentrated and exchanged. England had further in view to leave not a single foot to stand on to the Dutch, whose interests in those seas clashed with her own, to obtain an emporium in which to collect all the more important products of the Archipelago for exchange against the teas and silks of China; and, lastly, to procure for the reception and repairs of the ships of war and merchantmen, a suitable harbour, such as, being in the vicinity of the teak-growing countries, would also have the advantage of supplying timber for her ships at any period when there might be in England a deficient supply of oak.
Sir Stamford, having previously examined several other localities, ultimately selected Singapore, and on 6th February, 1819, the English flag was hoisted on this solitary island, thus unsuspectedly inaugurating the beginning of a new era for the sea-faring world! At last, in 1824, came the Treaty of Cerum, by which Holland withdrew her pretensions in favour of England, and Singapore became an inalienable possession of the British Crown for a sum of 60,000 Spanish dollars paid over to its previous owner the Sultan of Djohore, together with a life-rent of 24,000 dollars annually payable to the same Malay chief. The slaves on the island were set at liberty, slavery was entirely abolished, and Singapore proclaimed a Free Port. The importance of Singapore as a site for a colony had already been pointed out and justified a century since by Captain Alexander Hamilton, who visited these seas at the beginning of the 18th century, and in a work entitled "A New Account of the East Indies," describes most circumstantially his stay at Djohore in 1703 on his voyage to China. In that work Hamilton narrates how the Sultan of Djohore wished to make him a present of the island, and how he declined this proposal with the remark that this island could be of no use to a private man, but would be eminently suitable for a colony and an emporium of trade,[28] because the winds were at all seasons favourable for egress from and entrance into these waters on every side. A hundred years