‘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.’
– T. S. Raffles
Raffles was about to secure his greatest triumph and create what will always be regarded as his memorial – the city of Singapore. The Company in London was still fuming over his anti-Dutch manoeuvrings in Sumatra, and with slowly malevolent penmanship confecting a damning dispatch that would put him finally in his place, scotching, once and for all, his distressing tendency to extend Britishness to other parts of the world as an act of human compassion. But the Company could not keep up with him. Once again, he did the impossible. While the Company scribes were still sharpening their adjectives, he convinced Moira, now Lord Hastings, of the intention of the Dutch to exclude Britain from the whole archipelago and of the urgent need to establish a British station to the east, near the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, to stop that mouth snapping shut.
He also intended to found a station at Aceh. Two commissioners were appointed to look into the succession to the throne. Raffles supported one candidate for the Sultanship, the other commissioner, in thrall to Penang, supported another. The Company’s two commissioners sat for seven weeks in Aceh harbour, while Raffles bombarded his fellow official with a thousand pages of memoranda until the poor man submitted.
A free agent, Raffles was at his best, liberated from Bengkulu to wander the archipelago, Aceh, Carimon, Riau, Penang, Malacca, looking for a site for his new outpost and engaging in swift, energetic moves of personal initiative, unshackled by bureaucracy and the cramping dictates of accountancy. No wonder he exulted in the Dutch description of him as an ‘unquiet spirit’. Yet, with Raffles, there was always the practical touch. Bricks, he hinted to a naval commander before they set off, would serve very well as ballast for his ship. They would also came in handy for building his new city.
Historians have understandably homed in on this period, as crucial to the interpretation of British policy. It would later be thrown into prominence by endless bickerings over whose original idea it was to form a settlement at Singapore, precisely who had rights in the matter, what was the legality of the treaties, what dark and hidden economic forces really moved their human hearts.
It would be unwise to overlook one essential fact. The Raffles of this time was at least as concerned with natural history as with politics. He was visiting the botanical gardens in Calcutta, hiring botanists to work with him in Bengkulu, corresponding with British specialists in many branches of the sciences. He had a long, involved relationship with the Sumatran tapir, having tracked it down from early reports in Penang and Malacca until finally he was able to present one to the Governor-General’s park in Barrackpore in redemption of his studies. For Raffles, this was no mere distraction or consolation, the creation of knowledge was what he considered the ultimate justification of the European presence.
His first deed after taking possession of the harbour of Singapore was to set draughtsmen to work on the natural history of the island. By the time they got back to Penang, even the Editor, heavily pregnant, was loyally plugging away at botany while her busy womb was gestating his son, Leopold.
* * *
Singapore was formally founded on 6 February 1819. A number of accounts of the proceeding are preserved.
‘ … Mr Raffles himself came and shook hands with Tengku Long [the Sultan recognized as having authority], and a great many cannons were fired from the ships and from the cutters. Mr Raffles showed Tengku Long every honour and respect … At that time, Mr Raffles was speaking with smiles and a pleasant face, and kept bowing his head, and was as sweet as a sea of honey. Not merely the human heart but even a stone would be broken by hearing such words as his, with a gentle voice like the sweetest music, in order to remove any sadness, and that the doubt which might be concealed in the treasury of the human heart might also disappear, and so all the waves of uncertainty which were beating upon the reef of doubt were stilled, and the cloud which threatened a squall of wind with darkness such as that of a great storm about to break was all dissipated, so that the weather became fine and there blew the gentle breeze which comes from the garden of love, and then suddenly there arose the full moon of the fourteenth day with its bright light so that the sincerity of Mr Raffles became evident to Tengku Long. In a moment his sadness changed to gladness and his face lighted up. As Mr Raffles looked out of the corner of his eye, his face changed colour, and he rose from his chair, and taking the hand of Tengku Long he led him into his cabin, and closed the door. In that cabin, these two men conversed, and no one knows the secret of what they said. If I knew the secret of their conversation, I would certainly write it in this story, but God alone knows it. After a considerable time they both came out smiling and holding one another’s hands, and then they went down into the boat.’
– Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah
‘During the whole of the ceremony the vulgarity of the Sultan’s expression, the want of expression and the perspiration running down his face, combined with the wicked and dastardly proposal he made a few days ago for the murder of the Dutch at Rhio, raised in the feelings of the English spectators a horrible and disgusting loathing of his person, and several in pretty audible whispers, expressing these thoughts on the occasion sufficiently loud for Sir Stamford to hear, and in which sensation I suspect he inwardly accorded. The Tomagan [local chief] had a countenance more of dark cunning with some sparks of duplicity than otherwise, if I might be allowed to form an account of his heart from the index of his face; his certainly hard expression marked him to be fit for treasons, stratagems, war.’
–Captain J. Crawford
‘I shall say nothing of the importance which I attach to the permanence of the position I have taken up at Singapore; it is a child of my own. But for my Malay studies I should hardly have known that such a place existed … Our object is not territory, but trade; a great commercial emporium, and a fulcrum, whence we may extend our influence politically as circumstances may hereafter require. By taking immediate possession, we put a negative to the Dutch claim of exclusion … I shall leave this for Bencoolen in a few days, where I hope to remain quietly until we hear decidedly from Europe …’
– T. S. Raffles
Raffles must have known full well what wrath he had called down upon his head. The livid Penang government characterized his calm return to Bengkulu as ‘like a man who sets a house on fire and then runs away’. But despite the crackle of a paper war with the Dutch and London, heavy with the thud of mortal memoranda, Raffles would not hear definitively from Europe for years. In the meantime, it might be expected that he would keep his head down. Not so. He was ready for another adventure.