Raffles

by Victoria Glendinning

  That is not an unfair assessment, from an enemy. Palmer actually facilitated Raffles by procuring – so with profit for himself – a ship, the Indiana, to be brought round to Penang for Raffles’ use.

  There was even more than this to engage Raffles in Calcutta. He saw in the Asiatic Society Museum ‘the head of a tapir’, as he wrote to Marsden in December. When he first was in Penang, back in 1805, he had heard tell of a tapir, ‘an animal in every respect the model of an elephant, but of diminutive size,’ but it died, and the servants threw its body into the sea. He had now seen a live one, at the Governor-General’s country place at Barrackpore. He was sending Marsden a ‘correct drawing’ of it. ‘It is the most docile creature I ever met with.’

  He made two new naturalist friends. Nathaniel Wallich, the recently appointed Superintendant of the six hundred-acre Botanic Garden in Calcutta, was a Dane, five years younger than Raffles. Staying with Wallich was a twenty-three-year-old doctor on sick leave – William Jack from Aberdeen, an ardent and gifted botanist. Raffles engaged Dr Jack as his personal physician and scientific collaborator, in place of the much-missed Dr Arnold.

  Raffles, Sophia and Dr Jack arrived in Penang on the last day of 1818, and William Farquhar shortly afterwards. On 4 December John Palmer had written to Major Farquhar: ‘I do hope, my Friend, that you will be employed to complete and perfect the only substantial measures which have been attempted since the peace with Holland in these seas; and that even Sir Stamford may not be used to diminish the value of your previous services.’ Raffles was only a liability in dealing with the Dutch, since that ‘worthy little statesman cannot budge a peg without exciting their suspicion and inspiring their Terror and Hatred and Hostility.’ This opinion, Palmer added, was ‘little less than High Treason’ in Bengal, and Farquhar was to keep it to himself.

  On their first day, Raffles and Sophia were among those dining with Governor Bannerman in the Marble Hall at Suffolk House. A Captain J.G.F. Crawford was among the dinner guests. Sir Stamford, he wrote in his journal, ‘exposed himself greatly today, when speaking of his former chum Mr Phillips, by remarking that he was a worthy good fellow,’ but that he did not ‘possess capacities to set the Thames on fire.’ Then, according to Crawford, Raffles said, after a short pause, ‘Well, Colonel, you know I cannot be idle, I must always be doing something.’

  This was not clever, since Phillips, whom Raffles never liked, and who never liked him, had just married Governor Bannerman’s daughter Janet; and Suffolk House itself belonged to Phillips.

  Captain Crawford saw Raffles as ‘a courtier in action’ and ‘an excellent worthy man, possessing great abilities, and of a bustling active disposition’ – and, significantly, with ‘credentials from the Marquess of Hastings constituting his Representative and Agent among the Malay Chiefs.’ Strategies were discussed at dinner, including the establishment of a ‘factory’ at Acheen.

  The complication at Acheen was the long-running rivalry for the throne. Local chiefs had ousted Sultan Johor Alum in 1816 in favour of Syf-ul-Alum, son of Syed Hussein, the rich and now tottering merchant in Penang. The former Sultan and his supporters did not give up, and there was bloodshed.

  Raffles strongly supported Sultan Johor Alum, the Anglophile, not very bright but legitimate ruler. (It was he who had awarded Raffles his Order of the Golden Sword.) John Palmer had been Syed Hussein’s agent and supporter over many years. Governor Bannerman, like Palmer, backed Syed Hussein’s son.

  If a trade treaty were to be made with Acheen, one of the contenders had to be recognised as the proper authority. Captain Coombs, Raffles’ co-Commissioner, shared Penang’s prejudices. Hastings, appointing the two, was hoping for balance.

  Raffles and Governor Bannerman argued over whether Raffles should go to Acheen to find out which contender was currently occupying the throne. Raffles wanted to go, Bannerman told him he should not. Bannerman deserves some sympathy. In a book written in Raffles’ time (unpublished until 1840), John Anderson, who served for seventeen years in Penang, remarked that Governors of Penang were hampered by never being allowed to make their own decisions. They had to refer everything to Bengal.

  ‘The superior merit of Sir S. Raffles,’ wrote John Anderson, ‘consists in acting for himself, as his enemies would express it, “in utter contempt of orders from his superiors”; as his friends would say, from “that decision of character, confidence in his own local knowledge and opinion that would lead him to decide and act, instead of asking for orders, or even against them, if he thought them wrong.”’

  Bannerman and Raffles were united only on the importance of the projected settlement to the south of the Malacca Strait – Bannerman thinking it would enhance the prestige and commercial success of Penang, under whose authority the settlement must surely be, as the area under consideration was only eight days’ sail away. He provided two survey ships, commanded by Captains Daniel Ross and J.G.F.Crawford, to make a survey of the relevant islands. Ship’s captains were of all kinds: Captain Ross was a distinguished hydrographer and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

  ‘Sir Stamford, at the instigation of Major Farquhar, picks on the Carimons,’ noted Captain Crawford. According to the instructions from the Supreme Government, he and Ross were ‘to comply, as far as our services will permit, with the wishes of Sir Stamford.’

  Governor Bannerman still recognised Major William Farquhar, not Raffles, as the man in charge. According to Sophia, the Penang Government ‘protested in the strongest manner, and exercised its power and influence in every possible way, against the attainment of the important object entrusted to him.’ Dr Jack was shocked but not surprised: ‘For they cannot but feel how little and insignificant they are in comparison with the energy of Sir Stamford,’ he wrote to Nathaniel Wallich. ‘I cannot express to you how much I am delighted with him. He is of the real sterling stamp, and of that active and comprehensive mind that diffuses a portion of its energy all around.’

  Instead of taking the heavily pregnant Sophia home to Bencoolen for the birth of the baby as they had arranged, Raffles decided she must remain in Penang because – against Governor Bannerman’s wishes – he wanted to go and see what could be achieved in Acheen while Farquhar was reconnoitring in the south. He installed Dr William Jack with her as medical supervisor, botany instructor and companion. Sophia made the best of this as she did of everything. Dr Jack was happy too. ‘Think how comfortable I am,’ he wrote to Nathaniel Wallich, ‘with so agreeable a woman as Lady R., abundant leisure to examine the productions of this Island: in short I am delighted, and the day is not half long enough for all that I have and wish to do.’

  In view of controversy about the ‘ownership’ of the founding of Singapore, it is worth examining the Marquess of Hastings’ instructions to Raffles, drafted by Raffles when he was in Calcutta. The arrangements had been made ‘without further reference to the Authorities at home.’ The Governor-General considered the port of Rhio to be the most advantageous position, ‘just before the entrance to the Straits, exactly in the track of shipping passing in or out of them,’ effectively in command of ‘both the Strait of Malacca and Sincapore.’ Major Farquhar’s ‘long experience and peculiar qualifications…eminently fit him for the command of the Post which it is desirable to establish and the local superintendence of our interest and affairs.’ Sir Stamford was to ‘leave that officer at Rhio… and consider yourself at liberty to return to Bencoolen, where your presence will be required.’ Most importantly, the ‘general management of our interests beyond the Strait of Malacca’ were to be under Sir Stamford’s ‘immediate control as Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen.’

  So Raffles – with Hastings – had established that the proposed new settlement would be under Raffles’ personal authority, from distant Bencoolen, cutting out Penang.

  Farquhar was instructed to accompany Raffles to Rhio ‘with a view to your remaining in the local charge of the British interest in that quarter, under the general superintendence of the Lieutenant-Govern
or of Bencoolen.’ (Rhio turned out to have been grabbed by the Dutch, but so far as islands were concerned the Governor-General’s instructions were transferable.) There was thus no ambiguity about the division of responsibilities, or the ranking of the two principals.

  The plan was for Farquhar to sail with troops, meet up with the surveyors’ ships, and do some exploring. His instructions from Raffles were not to establish any settlement; he was to proceed eastward, and ‘having ascertained the capabilities of Sincapore and its vicinity, and the result being satisfactory,’ to ‘make such arrangements for securing to us the important Command of that Station.’

  Raffles did not, after all, go to Acheen before joining Farquhar. He could not miss out on the great adventure.

  Major Farquhar sailed from Penang at dawn on 18 January 1819. Raffles, the previous night, had secretly loaded up the Indiana (not forgetting a red carpet) and its escort schooner the Enterprise. He left a note for Bannerman saying he was acceding to his wishes by not going to Acheen, sent a message to Farquhar to say he was on his way – and slipped off, just catching the same morning tide.

  Chapter 11

  Founding Father

  Singapore and Bencoolen 1819–1821

  Raffles’ ships caught up those of Farquhar and the surveyors off the Carimon Islands, and there was a conference on the Indiana. In Farquhar’s ‘Memorial’ to the Company (1824), he asserted that ‘at the suggestion of your Memorialist [himself] they stopped… at Singapore.’ It was actually Captain Ross, according to Captain Crawford, who pointed out Singapore’s good harbour – where, on the evening of 28 January, the posse of vessels weighed anchor.

  Mystified island people rowed out to meet them. Raffles ascertained that the local chief on the island was the Temenggong, and that no Dutch had ever been there. So next morning he and Farquhar, the small man and the tall, stepped out on to the beach where the river met the sea.

  Singapore was a dependency of Johore on the mainland, and no exception to the customary issues of disputed succession. The Sultan of Johore named his eldest son, Tunku Long, as his heir. An uncle, the Rajah Muda of Rhio, challenged Tunku Long, declaring his nephew to be the rightful Sultan of Johore. Stalemate.

  On Singapore the Temenggong, as a supporter of Tunku Long, was prepared to treat with Sir Stamford. But to cover all eventualities, Major Farquhar sailed from Singapore that afternoon to call upon the Rajah Muda at Rhio. In the presence of the watchful Dutch, the Rajah Muda refused permission for a British post on Singapore. Privately he said just the opposite to Farquhar, though he would have to lodge a protest, to placate the Dutch.

  Raffles had no doubt that Singapore was the right place for the new settlement. The next day, 30 January 1819, he made a provisional treaty with the Temenggong, promising him in return 3,000 Spanish dollars a year and half of all port duties, in perpetuity. He wrote to William Marsden, triumphantly inscribing ‘Singapore’ at the top of the paper: ‘Here I am true to my word, and in the enjoyment of all the pleasure which a footing on such classic ground must inspire. The lines of the old city, and its defences, are still to be traced, and within its ramparts the British Union [flag] waves unmolested.’

  The straits separating Singapore from the Malaysian mainland are nowhere more than a mile across. The island is at most twenty-six miles long from east to west, and a maximum of fourteen miles north to south. Few vestiges of the ancient city were discernible in 1819, apart from a long mound – the ‘ramparts’ – where the flag was flying. ‘Most certainly the Dutch never had a Factory in the Island of Singapore,’ Raffles told Marsden, ‘and it does not appear to me that their recent arrangements with a subordinate authority at Rhio can or ought to interfere with our permanent establishment here. I have, however, a violent opposition to surmount on the part of the Government of Penang…This, therefore, will probably be my last attempt. If I am deserted now, I must fain return to Bencoolen, and become philosopher.’

  He had to hurry back to Penang ‘where I have left Lady Raffles, and my anxiety to get there, on her account, is very great. If I keep Singapore I shall be quite satisfied; and in a few years our influence over the Archipelago, as far as concerns our commerce, will be fully established.’ And later, to Colonel Addenbrooke, Prince Leopold’s right-hand man: ‘But for my Malay studies I should have hardly known that such a place existed; not only the European, but the Indian world was also ignorant of it.’

  That statement, as it stands, is nonsense. Everyone knew where Singapore was. It had more than once been considered by Europeans as a strategic settlement. Raffles was eliding his facts. What most Europeans and many East Asians did not know was Singapore’s significance as the site of the ‘Lion City’, the great citadel abandoned six hundred years earlier and full of ghosts – ‘Bukit Larangan’, the Forbidden Hill, to the local inhabitants. This captured Raffles’ imagination. The rebirth of the ancient centre of Malay civilisation as a centre of British influence meant much to him.

  Raffles still had to achieve a Treaty of Alliance with Tunku Long, who came secretly by night, fearing, like his rival, repercussions from the Dutch. But he had no trouble declaring himself the lawful sovereign of Singapore and Johore, wickedly cheated by his relations. By the time Farquhar returned from Rhio, Raffles – with his talent for theatre – had invited ashore the commanders and officers of the ships to witness the signing of the great treaty between Sir Stamford Raffles on behalf of the East India Company and Tunku Long, now confirmed as Sultan of Johore, with the title of Sultan Hussein Mahummud Shah.

  The sixth of February 1819 was a beautiful day. Ships and boats were decorated with pennants. Field guns were mounted on the beach. Cold lunches were provided. At the river’s mouth, chairs were set outside the state tent, from where the red carpet stretched for a hundred feet along the river bank. There was some unruly firing of guns from the ships in the bay as the new Sultan, perspiring heavily, made his appearance.

  Raffles stood, and presented his commission from the Marquess of Hastings. The Treaty of Alliance was read out, signed and sealed. Gifts were presented – opium, guns, scarlet wool cloth. The whole company moved on to the ramparts to watch the Union Jack being hoisted. (It had been hauled down earlier, just so that it might be ceremonially raised.) The sepoys fired a volley and the Artillery a royal salute; the guns on the ships in the bay followed suit, and everyone had a drink, the Malays sitting down with the English.

  Afterwards Captain Crawford proposed giving Sir Stamford three cheers and ‘after a little demur’ – from whom? – this was ‘done with spirit’. That night Raffles gave a dinner party on the Indiana. Major Farquhar was not present. As Resident and Commandant of Singapore, he remained on the island as darkness fell, with his suite, his officers, the sepoys, the local inhabitants, and the rats with which the foreshore was infested.

  In nine days Raffles and Farquhar had achieved something which would change the economic and political geography of South-East Asia. As well as imposing his will on the native rulers with maximum persuasiveness and skill, and stage-managing the climactic events, Raffles had much paperwork to do before he sailed.

  He issued a brief Proclamation for public distribution, announcing the signing of the Treaty and the appointment of Major William Farquhar as Resident and Commandant ‘and all persons are hereby directed to obey Major Farquhar accordingly.’ And – just in case there was any doubt – ‘the Residency of Singapore has been placed under the Government of Fort Marlborough [Bencoolen] and it is to be considered a dependency thereof; of which all persons concerned are desired to take notice.’ He produced a Memorandum of Instructions for Major Farquhar, dated 6 February, the day of the treaty-signing. This document extends to twenty-three numbered paragraphs, and could not have been written in advance as the references are site-specific.

  The instructions stressed the ‘high importance of avoiding all measures which can be construed into an interference with any of the States where the authority of his Netherlands Majesty may be established
.’ Equally, ‘caution and delicacy’ must be observed in communications with native rulers under the immediate influence of the Dutch, as with those ’free and independent tribes’ which might come to the port for reasons of trade.

  Raffles was leaving Lieutenant Crossley with Major Farquhar, to be his Assistant and to direct the Pay Department, Stores and Commissariat. Captain Bernard (Farquhar’s son-in-law) was ‘provisionally’ appointed Acting Master Attendant and Marine Storekeeper. (Raffles wanted this post for his brother-in-law William Flint.) He settled their allowances – i.e. salaries – subject to approval from the Supreme Government. Constructing a harbour and providing watering facilities for visiting ships was a priority. On the Hill overlooking the beach, ‘a small fort or commodious blockhouse’ should be built; and defensive batteries on each side of the port, and a palisade round the Cantonment. A Martello Tower should be erected at Deep Water Point.

  ‘I should not think myself justified at the present moment in authorising the erection of a house for the accommodation of the chief authority,’ but would take an early opportunity of recommending it to Supreme Government. This was a bone of contention with Farquhar already. The Resident could not be expected to live in an atap hut. Farquhar was to build himself an appropriately commodious bungalow.