Raffles

by Victoria Glendinning

  The Borneo carrying Ella – their ‘last little prattler’ – and Nurse Grimes sailed on 4 March 1822, carrying also a cargo of pepper and spices, part of which Raffles was trading on his own account. He had somehow to raise cash, for the reasons he explained to Joseph Dart, the Company’s Secretary in London: ‘In consequence of…the necessity I have felt myself under of providing funds for a portion of my family proceeding to and residing in England, I have availed myself of the opportunity afforded by the present consignment of spices to the Court to include a quantity to the value of 8000 d[ollars] on my own account, a measure to which I trust the Honble Court will not object under the circumstances above stated, and the more particularly as the said amount is in excess of what I was authorised by the Board of Trade to purchase.’

  The Borneo slipped over the horizon. ‘What a sad and lonely house, without nurse and the children,’ he wrote to Peter Auber two days later, ‘we wander from room to room, solitary and dejected. But God’s will be done, and we must be content.’

  Permatang Balang had only ever been an oasis in the festering society of Bencoolen. Two of Raffles’ ADCs, Captains Watson and Methven, turned rogue, and Raffles dealt severely with them. Weakness was causing him to lash out – the one thing he was always warning William Flint not to do. ‘I hope to god you and Flint keep quiet – avoid hot water – and tell him that if he keeps his temper he may be right, but if he loses it he must be wrong.’ Raffles was not going to be capable of following his own advice.

  Unlike Sophia, Raffles was not sustained by a strong Christian belief. His attitude to religion was pragmatic. Elton Hamond, in whose nonsense lurked some sense, had written in his farewell letter: ‘If you can be religious, good! But don’t sink the man in the Christian.’ Raffles never sank the man in the Christian. He believed in the benign efficacy of Christian principles, but never referred to Christ, or salvation, or redemption, and – this was a statement of a sort – nearly always wrote ‘god’ with a lower-case ‘g’. He used the term ‘Providence’, as did many nominal Christians, more comfortably than the word God, or god.

  He was a fatalist and keenly aware of hubris. Sophia in her Memoir recalled that during the idyllic times with the children and animals at Bencoolen, ‘Sir Stamford never forgot that the scene was too bright to continue unclouded, and often gently warned the Editor not to expect to retain all the blessings God in his bounty had heaped upon them at this time.’ Telling Thomas Murdoch about the loss of the children, he observed that ‘We were, perhaps, too happy, too proud of our blessings.’

  The Company had never allowed Christian proselytising, though it was permitted to appoint chaplains in their settlements for the benefit of Company personnel. The renewal of the Company’s Charter in 1813 (which brought to an end the Company’s monopoly of trade with India) brought about a volte-face, after pressure on the Company from religious enthusiasts and evangelicals. By the terms of the Charter, missionaries were encouraged to settle in India (including the Eastern Isles), and the Company was required to appoint a Bishop and three Archdeacons in Calcutta.

  Pressure to admit missionaries came from within India House as well as from outside. Charles Grant, Director and off-and-on Chairman of the Court over many years, was a member of the evangelical Clapham Sect. A letter from Grant to Raffles dated 19 July 1820 is nuanced, starting with a by-now familiar barrage of censure: ‘You are probably aware of the obstacles which have been opposed to the adoption of your measures [re Singapore], and even threatened your position in the service. Your zeal considerably outstepped your prudence…’

  But then came a paragraph to lighten Raffles’ heart: ‘The acquisition of Singapore has grown in importance… It is now accredited in the India House. Of late, in an examination before a committee of the House of Lords, I gave my opinion of the value, in a moral, political, and commercial view, of a British establishment in the locality of Singapore, under the auspices of the Company. From all these circumstances and others, I augur well as to the retention and encouragement of the station your rapidity has pre-occupied. Accept of these few hints instead of an elaborate letter.’

  Grant’s final sentence may also be read as a ‘hint’ – or a word to the wise: ‘I have heard of your efforts for introducing religious improvement into Bencoolen. I hope that disposition will follow you wherever you go.’

  This was one way that Raffles could mitigate the Company’s disapproval, though he was not himself in favour of trying to impose Christianity. As he had written from Buitenzorg to Cousin Thomas: ‘I am a good deal more inclined than you are to let people go to heaven in their own way. I foresee much mischief – much bitterness of heart and contention – by an inordinate desire after conversion.’ He was ‘Utopian enough’ to think that a system ‘founded on the principles of Christianity, and modified according to the temper of the people, would be far better than the naked revelation at once, which they would neither admire or relish.’ This was the only subject on which Raffles advocated caution and gradualism; he was not ego-involved.

  Missionaries – non-conformist Protestants – became a presence in the Archipelago, distributing their Bibles, catechisms and tracts. Raffles reported to Cousin Thomas in February 1815 on a handful who arrived under the London Missionary Society’s auspices: ‘Your friend Mr Supper has been fixed at Batavia – he is a good simple creature, rather silly, but amiable.’ The missionaries Raffles liked were the kind of men he would have liked in any walk of life. The Rev. William Milne was ‘a liberal, well-informed, excellent man’; Milne had co-founded the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca.

  Raffles did not conceal from Cousin Thomas that he thought most missionaries were useless: ‘Had I been a Missionary myself I think I could have evangelised the whole island by this time.’ He approved of the Rev. William Robinson, who opened a school, seemed ‘a good practical sort of fellow,’ and preached in Malay. But most knew no Malay and ‘so far as I can see, do nothing.’ But with missionaries came printing-presses. Raffles caused some resentment among the Baptist missionaries in Bencoolen by hijacking their press for Government notices and proclamations, not to mention his own natural history material, using the mission presses as one would use a photocopier.

  Raffles told Maryanne he had ‘no particular inclination’ to return to Singapore, suspecting he would be sailing into trouble. William Flint had set himself on a collision course with Lieutenant-Colonel William Farquhar. On arrival in Singapore, he took over the well-paid positions of Master Attendant and Marine Storekeeper, as promised by Raffles, which meant displacing the temporary holder of the offices: Farquhar’s son-in-law Francis Bernard. That in itself required more tact than Flint possessed. Flint then proceeded to channel constant protests to Raffles in Bencoolen about his demeaning treatment by Farquhar – bureaucratic trivia.

  Raffles, for Maryanne’s sake, defended Flint. But in July 1822 he wrote her a exasperated letter: ‘As you love and respect your brother – for God’s sake restrain Flint from [illegible] himself with Farquhar – he has done so already and so seriously that I hardly know how to act – don’t think of yourselves but of me – everything of the kind bars and neutralises all my intentions. You know not how seriously you are injuring me by these proceedings.’

  There were other bones of contention. Farquhar allowed his son, Andrew, to export rice to Rhio against the regulations, and he himself had had imported nine chests of opium from Calcutta, passed them to Francis Bernard to sell, and placed the proceeds with an agency house in Singapore. Farquhar reported this transaction to Raffles as a private transfer of funds, but Raffles was angry.

  He and Sophia were to have left Bencoolen for Singapore on 15 September 1822, but an adverse wind held them back. So they were there to witness another sad death – of Dr William Jack, their dear friend, who had kept Sophia happy during her pregnancy in Penang, and delivered baby Ella. He was all set to be Raffles’ collaborator on his second edition.

  They sailed a couple of days later on the Minto
with Sophia’s youngest brother Nilson Hull, Captain Salmond, and a doctor. Raffles planned to stay six months in Singapore (he stayed eight) with the intention – as he wrote to Cousin Thomas – ‘of arranging and modelling something like a constitution for the place, and transferring its future management to a successor [to Farquhar].’ They would return to Bencoolen ‘for the purpose of winding up.’ after which ‘we contemplate the prospect of revisiting old England.’

  They reached Singapore on 10 October. Raffles had not been back for two and a half years. The next day he wrote to a friend in England: ‘The coldest and most disinterested could not quit Bencoolen and land at Singapore, without surprise and emotion… After all the risks and dangers to which this my almost only child had been exposed, to find it grown and advanced beyond measure, and even my warmest anticipations and expectations.’ He had thought that the time had passed when he could take much interest in it ‘but I already feel differently; I feel a new life and vigour about me.’

  He went into action. Since Singapore was a dependency of Bencoolen, and Raffles was Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen, he was Lieutenant-Governor of Singapore as well. Nilson Hull was his Acting Secretary, through whom Raffles communicated with the Resident, Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar, on all official business. Farquhar had no Secretary, although his sons-in-law Captain Davis and Francis Bernard acted as his Assistants. Only days after his arrival, Raffles ‘discontinued’ Bernard’s post as Farquhar’s Assistant.

  The success of the settlement was not in question. In 1822, 139 square-rigged ships and 1,434 native vessels called in to trade. As Raffles told the Duchess on 30 November: ‘Here all is life and activity; and it would be difficult to name a place on the face of the globe, with brighter prospects or more present satisfaction. In little more than three years it has risen from an insignificant fishing village to a large and prosperous town, containing at least 10,000 inhabitants of all nations, actively involved in commercial pursuits, which afford to each and all a handsome livelihood and abundant profit.’ Any letter to the Duchess had a public-relations aspect; and there was a darker side.

  Many of Raffles’ instructions had been disregarded by Farquhar, and measures had been taken which he deplored and proceeded to overturn. Outraged to learn that slaves were being sold on the river near Farquhar’s house, he called Farquhar’s attention to the fact that slave-trading was a felony by Act of Parliament for any British subject. The Resident’s response was that ‘circumstances’ accounted for the irregularity. Farquhar, in the thick of it, far away from both Bencoolen and Bengal, had made his accommodations pragmatically.

  Raffles certainly did not want to antagonise Farquhar. He wrote to John Brown – one of his remaining friends in Penang – on 12 November 1822:

  I am afraid our friend Farquhar is a little annoyed because I do not approve of his European Town, as he calls it…but I trust it will not be long before he comes around to my opinions generally. It can never be my wish or interest to annoy him nor his to annoy me. We have both a great interest in the prosperity of the place and it must not be allowed to go into confusion for want of due precautions. You know that he is sometimes as good-natured as he is stubborn at others, and I don’t think either of these failings decrease with his years [Farquhar was in his late forties] but he has a warm and kind heart and while that is the case we must make allowances for minor defects.

  John Crawfurd called in at Singapore for a week that November, back from a commercial mission to Siam and Cambodia and on his way to Bengal. Crawfurd inspected the ‘Singapore Stone’ at the entrance to the salt creek; he took his morning walk round the Singapore Hill, now cleared and ‘clothed with a fine grassy sward’, and identified the boundaries of the ancient city. It can be inferred from Raffles’ letters to Wallich that Raffles spoke to Crawfurd during this week about his taking over from Farquhar as Resident.

  The most extreme – and the most costly – of Raffles’ reversals of Farquhar’s policy was over land allocation. Raffles had designated the north-eastern bank of the river for Government offices and public buildings. Farquhar had allowed European merchants to build their wharves and warehouses there; the stretch of shore which Raffles had allocated to the merchants in 1819 turned out to be impractical for loading and unloading because of the heavy surf. The south-west side of the river, where the Chinese were settled, was equally unsuitable because of its salt-marsh swampiness.

  Raffles had also ruled that the original Cantonment – now the Esplanade – was to be kept clear as a public space; Farquhar had allowed haphazard domestic housing on it, and built his own spacious Residency bungalow there, as did Claude Queiros, a Eurasian protégé of John Palmer and his personal representative in Singapore. Though Palmer was still a gadfly to Raffles, his influence was waning. Associated with his half-Indian half-brother William in an agency house in Hyderabad, he was disgraced when a new-broom British Resident, Charles Metcalfe, discovered they were exacting from the Nizam excessive and illegal interest on loans.

  Raffles ruled that all structures erected in the ‘wrong’ places in Singapore must be moved or demolished. He appointed a Town Planning Committee, and a young Second Lieutenant, Philip Jackson, as Executive Engineer and Surveyor. Raffles ordered the Chinese to be moved inland from the south-west bank to make space for the European merchants’ warehouses and offices; the swampy land was made viable by raising levels, draining and infilling. Hundreds of labourers were employed to carry earth and rocks for the landfill, supervised by Raffles himself.

  He rearranged the ‘native divisions’ or kampongs, which necessitated the removal of hundreds of people, quite apart from the Chinese, whom Raffles surmised, quite correctly, would ‘always form by far the largest portion of the community.’ The new villages for the Bugis, Arabs, Chuliahs and Malays were to be sited with care for their respective religious sensibilities; two hundred acres were cleared for a new village for the Temenggong. There were plans made for markets, police stations, a marine yard. The disruption was on a massive scale.

  An architect, George Coleman – Irish, from Co. Louth, still in his early twenties – arrived in Singapore a few months before Raffles. Waiting for him, Coleman designed a Residency House. He was to have a major impact on the development of the town, and died in 1844 in a house designed by himself in Coleman Street, named in his honour. His main work was done after Raffles left, and included the Armenian Church. Young Coleman became Raffles’ advisor on the grid of central streets, divided into first, second and third class depending on the width of the houses’ frontages.

  The shop-houses (shops or small businesses with living space above) were only twenty feet wide, apparently so as to match the standard length of the timbers cut from the jungle trees. The tight terraces were to have open verandahs forming a continuous arcaded walkway on both sides of the street – the ‘five-foot way’ – not unique to Singapore, but characteristic of the Singapore streetscape until the cataclysmic urban renewal of recent years. Raffles also commissioned a drawbridge over the Singapore River, which was completed in August 1823.

  By that time, Raffles had gone. Philip Jackson drew up the first known map of Singapore, a speculative plan not quite transferred into reality on the ground. Coleman made better sense of his layout, mostly following Raffles’ instructions, after Raffles left.

  Nathaniel Wallich, like Coleman, arrived before Raffles, en route for China to collect plants. He stayed, spending his leave in Singapore instead and coinciding with Raffles for about six weeks – long enough to cement their informal and familiar friendship: ‘Lady R. is dressing or would answer your note herself,’ wrote Raffles; and ‘Sophia tells me I may expect to see you at breakfast.’

  A section of Singapore Hill – the Forbidden Hill (now Fort Canning) – became the European cemetery. Raffles recruited Nathaniel Wallich, who had with him two apprentices and the head overseer from the Calcutta Botanic Garden, to help him establish a Botanic and Experimental Garden on the other side, planned to cover the whole
north-eastern slope and beyond. Houses within the perimeter had to be cleared, and their owners compensated and rehoused. The budget for the Garden’s development was sixty dollars a month, to include ten labourers and an overseer. There were some six-hundred-year-old fruit trees on the site, in a decayed condition. Wallich assured Raffles he would find ‘pride and satisfaction’ in superintending the project.

  But Raffles’ Botanic and Experimental Garden did not thrive. He himself had the paths laid out, and Wallich left Dr William Montgomerie, Medical Officer of the settlement, in charge when he left for Calcutta – but then, Montgomerie never heard another word from Wallich about it. Montgomerie continued planting spices after Raffles left Singapore, but when he too left to take up a post in India the project languished, and in 1829 the Garden on the Hill was officially abandoned. (The great Botanic Gardens at Tanglin were not founded until 1859.)

  When Raffles and Sophia arrived in 1822 they stayed with the Flints in their house at the end of the Point, a simple structure with matting walls and an atap roof. Raffles decided to build the Governor’s Residence on Singapore Hill. After a farewell dinner the evening before he left for Calcutta, Wallich determined the precise site of the projected Residence. Raffles sent a note to him on shipboard next day: ‘I marked out the site of a small bungalow on the Hill where you threw the stone last night…’ Raffles already had Coleman’s design, and the house, begun in November 1822, was finished by January 1823.