A Visit to Java / With an Account of the Founding of Singapore

by W. Basil Worsfold

THE ESPLANADE, SINGAPORE.

After some years' service as a clerk in the East India house in London, Raffles was despatched in 1805, when only twenty-three years of age, to the East, as assistant-secretary to the Government of Penang, where a settlement was then being formed by the company. In this capacity he so distinguished himself as to attract the notice of Lord Minto, then Governor-General of India. In particular Raffles made himself acquainted, as no other European had done before, with the circumstances and character of the Malay races. Subsequently, in view of the annexation of Holland by Napoleon, it became desirable for the Indian Government to take some measures to prevent the establishment of the French in the Dutch possessions in the East. When, as a means to this end, it was determined to occupy Java, it was to Raffles that Lord Minto applied for the necessary information upon which the operations of the expedition could be based. The capture of Java was considered of such importance that the Governor-General himself accompanied the expedition. Raffles' information was found to be so accurate, and his suggestions so valuable, that after the capitulation of General Jansens on September 18, 1811, Lord Minto entrusted the island to his charge. Up to the present, Raffles had been acting first as agent and afterwards as chief secretary to the Governor-General; he was now appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java and its dependencies.

I have already written of the principles upon which Raffles based his measures during the five years of his administration, and of the criticism which was directed against them. The whole of Raffles' public acts as a servant of the company were reviewed by the Court of Directors in 1826. The verdict of this very competent authority, with reference to the financial expedients and the general reforms which he adopted in his administration of the island, was entirely favourable, if we except what refers to the sale of lands, which it characterized as a "questionable proceeding." It is worthy of note, however, that this "questionable proceeding" had been pronounced by the Governor-General to be "an able expedient in a moment of great emergency." Raffles was bitterly disappointed when the news reached him that, under the settlement effected by the Treaty of London, the British Government had consented to restore Java to the Dutch. For a moment the announcement of Napoleon's escape from Elba seemed to bring a chance of a reprieve. But this transient gleam of hope was soon dispelled, and in March, 1816, Raffles relinquished the government to the imperial officer appointed to carry out the transference of the island. Lord Minto had secured for him the residency of Bencoolen, a settlement on the western coast of Sumatra; but his state of health was so unsatisfactory that it became necessary for him to proceed to England without delay.

After a stay of only fifteen months' duration, during which he received the honour of knighthood from the king, Raffles again set sail for India in October, 1817. He was appointed to the government of Bencoolen, with the title of Lieutenant-Governor of Fort Marlborough, and it is in this capacity that he signed his Singapore proclamations. It appears, however, that he was in some way commissioned by the Home Government to exercise a general supervision over British interests in the further East. In a letter written in 1820 he says that he "had separate instructions from the Court to watch the motions of foreign nations, and particularly the Dutch, in the Archipelago generally, and to write to the Court and the Secret Committee."[31] On his arrival at Bencoolen in March, 1819, he set himself once more to achieve that object for which he had incessantly worked ever since his first appearance in the East—the establishment of British influence in Malaya and the Eastern Archipelago. With this object in view Raffles resolved to proceed to Calcutta, in order that he might personally confer with Lord Hastings, who had succeeded Lord Minto as Governor-General, and secure the co-operation of the Bengal Government in his plans. He arrived at Calcutta early in July of the same year. Lord Hastings expressed a high appreciation of the value of Raffles' services in Java, and gave him general assurances of his further support. Although the Bengal Government were not prepared to endorse the extension of the British authority in Sumatra, they and the British merchants at Calcutta were at least rendered sensible by Raffles' arguments of the importance of endeavouring to check the progress of the Dutch in the Malay Peninsula. Of the two channels which alone gave access to the Archipelago, one was already in the hands of the Dutch, and the other soon would be. In short, unless some immediate and energetic measures were taken, the trade of the whole Eastern Archipelago would be closed against the English merchants. In his own words, Raffles asked for neither territory nor people; all he wanted was "permission to anchor a line-of-battle ship and hoist the English flag."

In short, the result of Raffles' visit to Calcutta was that the Bengal Government resolved, if possible, to keep the command of the Straits of Malacca, and he was despatched as their agent to effect this purpose.

It appears that the Bengal Government hoped to sufficiently command the straits by an establishment at Achin, in the extreme north of Sumatra, and by taking possession of Rhio, a small island south of Singapore. Raffles, however, foresaw—what indeed happened—that the Dutch would anticipate him in the occupation of Rhio, while Achin seemed scarcely suitable for the purpose. When he left Calcutta he had another plan in view. On December 12, 1818, he writes from on board the Nearchus, at the mouth of the Ganges, to his frequent correspondent Marsden, the Sumatran traveller—

"We are now on our way to the eastward, in the hope of doing something, but I much fear the Dutch have hardly left us an inch of ground to stand upon. My attention is principally turned to Johore, and you must not be surprised if my next letter to you is dated from the site of the ancient city of Singapura."

In carrying out the difficult task which had been entrusted to him, Raffles encountered not only the opposition of the Dutch, which he naturally expected, but that of the Government of Penang. The authorities at Penang had a double reason for their opposition. In the first place, they regarded the establishment of a station further east as detrimental to the interests of their own settlement; and, in the next, they had themselves unsuccessfully endeavoured to acquire a similar position, and now maintained that the time had gone by for such measures. Fortunately, however, Raffles had already secured the services of Colonel Farquhar and a military force. This officer was in command of the troops at Bencoolen, which, at the time Raffles left Calcutta, were on the point of being relieved. Raffles had written from Calcutta, instructing him to proceed to Europe by the Straits of Sunda, where he would receive further instructions.

Singapore, the spot which Raffles' knowledge of the Malay states enabled him to secure for his settlement, is a small island, twenty-seven miles long by fourteen broad, immediately south of the Malay Peninsula, from which it is separated by a channel of less than a mile in width. No situation could be imagined better calculated to secure the objects which the new settlement was intended to effect. Not only does the island completely command the Straits of Malacca, the gate of the ocean highway to China and the Eastern Archipelago, but, lying at a convenient distance from the Chinese, the Indian, and the Javanese ports, it was admirably adapted to serve as an entrepôt and centre of English trade.

The island at this time formed part of the territory of the Sultan of Johore, and it contained the remains of the original maritime capital of the Malays. It was within the circuit of these Malay fortifications, raised more than six centuries ago, that, on the 29th of February, 1819, Raffles planted the British flag at Singapore.