Raffles

by Victoria Glendinning

  No port duties were to be exacted from visiting vessels so as not to inhibit trade. Quarterly accounts must be submitted to Fort Marlborough, ‘to me’, and the ‘usual return’ to the Presidency of Fort William in Calcutta. ‘I shall probably return to this Residency after a short absence;’ meanwhile he had ‘a perfect reliance’ on the Resident.

  He even found time to explore, coming across three species of Nepenthe (pitcher-plants, one of which received the epithet rafflesiana). And then on 7 February, the morning after the signing of the Treaty, Raffles sailed with the Indiana for Penang.

  The newly appointed Sultan of Johore was sweating during the Treaty ceremony because he was scared. Neither he nor the Temenggong knew how the Dutch would react to the British landing on Singapore. To keep their options open, it had to seem to the Dutch as if they had acted under compulsion. The Sultan sent a letter to the Dutch authorities in Rhio explaining how, when he heard that Raffles was landing stores and soldiers on Singapore, ‘I completely lost my head and never thought of letting you know.’ Raffles had ‘laid hold of me and would not let me go again but insisted on making me Rajah of the title of Sultan.’ He had no option but to comply. The Temenggong, equally apprehensive, wrote to the Dutch: ‘All of us who were at Singapore were much startled’ when they saw the British landings. ‘We were powerless to say anything…We in no way separate ourselves from the Dutch. As it was with us in the beginning, so it shall be to the end as long as there are a sun and a moon.’

  When Raffles got back to Penang on 13 February, Sophia’s baby had still not arrived. She seemed content, deeply into natural history studies with young Dr Jack. The ground floor of the house, he told the Duchess, ‘is more like the menagerie at Exeter Change, than the residence of a gentleman. Fish, flesh and fowl, alike contribute to the collection; and above stairs the rooms are variously ornamented with branches and flowers, rendering them so many arbours.’

  He arranged for tools and materials to be shipped to Major Farquhar, and wrote his official report of the events at Singapore for Bengal. He asked Governor Bannerman for more sepoys to be sent to Singapore. Bannerman flatly refused. Singapore would obviously have to be abandoned, so the smaller the military force to be evacuated the better. He bluntly accused Raffles of ‘personal ambition and a desire for aggrandizement’, infuriated that Singapore had been placed under the control of Raffles at Bencoolen.

  A strong protest against the occupation of Singapore arrived from the Dutch in Malacca, citing the letters written by the Sultan and the Temenggong. This crisis was defused by Major Farquhar, who got the Temenggong to put his seal and the Sultan’s to a paper stating that ‘the English established themselves at Singapore with my free will and consent,’ and that all had been done with ‘the free accord of myself and the Sultan of Johore.’ There was nothing that Raffles could teach William Farquhar about tact or conciliation. Raffles foresaw a ‘paper war’ with the Dutch over Singapore, but not an actual war. Governor van der Capellan in Batavia was trusting the Marquess of Hastings to bring Raffles to heel, and wrote to him in the expectation that ‘a good and just Government such as the British would take immediate steps for the repression of the measures adopted by its subordinate agents.’

  Hastings – unforgivably – wavered under pressure from the Dutch, from the violent disapproval of India House, and from Bannerman’s drip-feed of antagonism. ‘Sir Thomas Raffles was not justified in sending Major Farquhar eastward after the Dutch protested; and, if the Post has not yet been obtained,’ Hastings wrote to Bannerman on 20 February 1819, ‘he is to desist from any further attempt to establish one.’ Too late. The Treaty of Alliance was signed and sealed already.

  After three weeks in Penang and still no baby, Raffles left Penang on the Indiana with Captain John Monckton Coombs on 8 March 1819 for the postponed expedition to Acheen. Their instructions from Bengal were to make a settlement with whichever king seemed the best bet. Coombs had been on a mission to Acheen a year earlier and reported that, although the new Sultan, Syf-ul-Alum, son of the Penang merchant Syed Hussein, was on the throne, the real power was in the hands of the Chiefs; and Sultan Johor Alum was nowhere.

  Syf-ul-Alum was becoming bolder in his piracy and plundering, but still the consensus in Penang was in his favour. Syed Hussein’s determination to secure support for his son occasioned an attempted bribe of Raffles through Sophia, as she described in a footnote in the Memoir: she was presented with a casket of diamonds ‘and it seemed to create much surprise that it was not even looked at.’ Intelligence was received that a Dutch brig had been in Acheen offering assistance and armed forces to Johor Alum, and that he had declined in consequence of a supportive letter Raffles sent him as he was leaving for Singapore. According to John Anderson, who was present, Bannerman was apoplectic about Raffles’ inappropriate intrusion in the matter.

  Raffles desired to secure Acheen as part of his vision of a ‘chain of ports’ which would establish British hegemony throughout the Archipelago and beyond. In his letter to Marsden from Singapore he presented the mission as a duty: he would go to Acheen ‘where I have to establish the British influence on a permanent footing.’ He had grounds for the claim. He first met Captain Coombs in Calcutta, when Coombs was consulting the Governor-General about Acheen and giving the Penang line: ‘and Lord Hastings asked my opinion. I had no hesitation in giving it as far as it was thus formed, and the Supreme Government was induced to pause.’ To add to the insult to Penang, Raffles was appointed the senior of the two Commissioners, as a Lieutenant-Governor could not be subordinate to a Captain.

  On arrival in the port of Acheen, Raffles and Coombs did not disembark. Raffles sent the three principal Chiefs an enquiry as to who they wished to be their ruler, Johor Alum or Syf-ul-Alum. They replied Syf-ul-Alum. Raffles was not given permission to land, so he invited the Chiefs to come down to the port to meet him. Accounts differ – either they did not turn up for a week, or Raffles kept them waiting around for a week. Raffles then sent a note saying he was ill, but that he had ‘not broken off his friendship’ with the Chiefs, though by now the Chiefs had broken off their friendship with him. Was Raffles ill, or unwilling to be told what he did not want to hear?

  He never left the ship at all. To Robert Harry Inglis, the son of the old Company director, he wrote: ‘We remained there nearly seven weeks, during the early portion of which we were directly opposed in our politics’ – that is, he and Coombs were squabbling – ‘but at length, after a paper war which actually occupies above a thousand pages of the Company’s largest sized paper, he came round to my opinion.’ The picture of Raffles and Coombs, cooped up on the Indiana, neurotically exchanging pages of polemic, is ludicrous.

  Coombs caved in. They sailed down the coast to Pedir, where Johor Alum was living in exile, and signed a treaty with him, dated 22 April 1819. This gave the British exclusively the freedom to trade in all the ports of Acheen, and to instal a British Resident. In return, Johor Alum was given credit on the Bengal Government to the tune of a million rupees, and arms and equipment were left with him.

  Raffles naively contacted John Palmer, and received a sarcastic reply thanking him for ‘the promised detail of your proceedings at Acheen; and which I shall read with interest if not with pleasure; for prima facie I have not the satisfaction of an entire concurrence in them; and esteem the evidence of a thousand pages as extremely equivocal of a good cause. How a subject so comparatively [word missing] could have produced such a waste of time and paper is to me a riddle.’ He suggested partitioning Acheen, which might just lead to Raffles’ treaty being implemented, since ‘I apprehend its abortion under the administration of Penang.’

  Palmer was an instrument in that inevitable abortion. The day he wrote to Raffles, he wrote to Phillips in Penang: ‘I think that between your communications and those of Coombs we have unmasked the artifices and charlataneries of the Golden Sword and left him his just title to repute for more talent than integrity.’

  The treaty was nev
er implemented, though Raffles initially represented this mission as a triumph. In his autobiographical letter to Cousin Thomas of 14 October 1819, he linked ‘settling the affairs of the distracted kingdom of Acheen’ with ‘establishing the Port of Sincapore… Complete success attended both these important measures.’ Later he wrote the episode off. In the comprehensive ‘Statement of Services’ which he wrote to the Court of Directors in 1824, he did not even mention Acheen.

  Sophia’s baby was born four days after Raffles left for Acheen – a boy, whom they named Leopold Stamford. The family and Dr Jack, returned from Penang to Bencoolen by way of Singapore, reaching the new settlement on 31 May 1819, and stayed a month.

  Raffles was elated. His dream was coming true. To Colonel Addenbrooke, and therefore to Prince Leopold: ‘Our object is not territory but trade, a great commercial Emporium, and a fulcrum whence we may extend our influence politically…and what Malta is to the West, that may Singapore be in the East.’ Farquhar had achieved an amazing amount in four months. More than fifteen miles of roads had been laid, and more than five thousand people were already living in and around the new township. Singapore, Raffles told Addenbrooke, was ‘a child of my own.’

  Already the main topographical features of the place had acquired their permanent names. Raffles became a town-planner. The grid pattern of streets for Europeans that he envisaged was like that imposed on all the major settlements of East India and the Eastern Isles. The Europeans’ warehouses would be in the Beach Road area. The Chinese kampong would be south of the river. The Malays and the followers of the Temenggong were to make their homes upriver. He designated the north bank, which was the firmest land, for Government buildings.

  They were clearing jungle that June from Rocky Point (later Artillery Point, where the Fullerton Hotel now stands). Workmen uncovered a sandstone boulder ten feet high, ten feet wide, and very thick, split into two. It was inscribed with mostly indecipherable lettering, probably dating from between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Raffles believed it to be Hindu. Fortunately he would never know that the ‘Singapore Stone’ was blown up in 1843 to clear the space for building. Three inscribed fragments were salvaged at that time and sent to the Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta. (One of these is now in the National Museum of Singapore.)

  The ship taking the Raffles family home to Bencoolen got stuck on a sandbank off Rhio on leaving Singapore, and was only re-floated by throwing overboard all the water loaded for the month’s voyage. They sent a boat to Rhio asking to be re-supplied with water. The Dutch Resident refused. But ‘a good Samaritan appeared in one of the beautiful American vessels,’ as Sophia wrote in the Memoir. The Captain ‘generously, and at considerable risk, for the wind was strong and in his favour, stopped his course, and with great difficulty, by means of ropes, conveyed some casks of water.’ They never forgot this American kindness.

  In the glow of Singapore’s success, they were on their way back to Charlotte, their daughter whom they had not seen since the previous August. It was at this point in the Memoir that Sophia chose to put into words the ‘pleasure of sailing through this beautiful and unparalleled Archipelago…the smoothness of the sea, the lightness of the atmosphere… Islands of every shape and size clustered together, mountains of the most fanciful forms crowned with verdure to their summit, rich and luxurious vegetation extending to the very edge of the water, little native boats, often with only one person in them, continually darting out from the deep shade which concealed them.’ The beautiful Archipelago represented the emotional geography of their family happiness.

  At noon on 31 July 1819, a vessel was spotted on the horizon from Fort Marlborough. Travers and the welcoming party waited on the wharf until ten at night, when the ship reached anchorage and Sir Stamford, Lady Raffles and four-month-old Leopold were ferried on shore.

  Raffles found Bencoolen in bad shape. The young officials were bored and restless. Raffles told William Brown Ramsay in March 1820 that ‘We have literally nothing for the civil servants to do at Bencoolen, and idleness is the root of all evils; they ought to be transferred to some other settlement, and not to be obliged to waste their time, life, and health here.’ There was even a sour note in Travers’ reverential attitude to Raffles: ‘The constant reports of changes…and the attempt to introduce a new system without means of carrying any plan into effect, has operated much against the place. Sir Stamford, in my opinion, acted precipitately in almost all he has done, and this opinion, is, in fact, confirmed by his being compelled to relinquish some of his plans.’

  Raffles had one more card to play. If it made sense for the supervising authority of Singapore to be in nearby Penang rather than in Bencoolen, then surely he himself should be appointed Governor of Prince of Wales Island (Penang) after Bannerman. He had this in mind during his second visit to Singapore, writing to his business agent in London: ‘I have experienced a good deal of opposition and unfair treatment from Colonel Bannerman…I conclude he will be anxious to secure the succession to the Govt of Penang to his son in law Phillips, who I am told has applied for it, but I hope the point is already settled in my favour – at all events I rely on the strenuous exertions of my friends to secure the succession for me.’

  On 8 August 1819 Governor Bannerman died at Penang, and W.E.Phillips was sworn in as Acting Governor. Raffles in Bencoolen did not hear of Bannerman’s death until the arrival of a ship on 2 October. This was his opportunity, or so he thought. He told Travers that when he was in Calcutta, Lord Hastings had said ‘that he thought the Government of our Eastern provinces should be placed under one head, and that no man was better qualified for the situation than Sir Stamford, and that on the removal or going away of Colonel J.A.Bannerman, he would certainly recommend the measure.’

  Who knows what was said in Calcutta, or by whom. Lord Hastings was impressed and beguiled by Raffles, and he was a man open to free-wheeling discussion. In a fifteen-thousand-word memorandum to Hastings, Raffles set out his big idea. Both Penang and Bencoolen should become purely commercial stations, without the burden of maintaining full civil establishments. ‘The residence of the superintending authority would not necessarily be fixed on either, he would occasionally visit them all and his principal residence would of course be in that which united the most advantages for his superintendence.’ Singapore, ‘once the great emporium of these seas, whose history is lost in the mists of antiquity,’ was central to this plan (which was extraordinarily like the arrangement for the Straits Settlements made soon after Raffles left).

  Raffles sailed for Calcutta in October 1819 to pitch for the governorship of Penang – without Sophia, who was pregnant yet again. He took along Dr William Jack and Captain Thomas Watson, who had been one of his ADCs in Java. Towards the end of December letters arrived in Bencoolen saying his return would be delayed. Things were not working out smoothly.

  Hastings was in favour, in principle, of Raffles’ radical idea: ‘The consolidation of our Eastern possessions into one Government subordinate to the Supreme Authority would unquestionably be a desirable arrangement,’ he wrote on 27 November. But until the future of Singapore was known, ‘it would be premature to fashion, even provisionally, any plans.’

  John Palmer, who as usual knew everything, wrote to Phillips: ‘The Golden Sword came here posthaste… He comes on public grounds to show his pretensions to your Government, having disinterestedly proposed long ago to the Court to reduce the Government to a Residency and consolidate everything Eastward in one hand. I told him…that I had been turning Heaven and Earth to procure the confirmation of your pretensions both here and at home.’

  One consolation for Raffles was the arrival in Calcutta of Maryanne and William Flint from England. But his plan was not accepted and he was ‘heavy and sick at heart’. In a uniquely expressive letter to the Duchess of Somerset in mid-December he said: ‘I could lay me down and cry, and weep for hours together, and yet I know not why, except that I am unhappy. But for my dear sister’s arrival, I should stil
l have been a solitary wretch in this busy capital. I left Lady Raffles and my dear children at Bencoolen three months ago; and I have no one of congenial feelings with whom I can communicate.’ Disappointed, suffering from terrible headaches, he longed for England, where ‘I must look out for some cottage or farm, and… endeavour to sell butter and cheese to advantage – do you think this would do?’

  Raffles broke his return journey from Calcutta on an island in Tapanuli Bay; the mainland there was Batak country, and the Bataks ate human flesh.

  English people were fascinated by cannibalism as the terrifying ‘dark side’ of dark people in faraway countries; though they were not so far from it, since dried and powdered human tissue – known as ‘mummy medicine’ – was still a traditional remedy in Europe. Raffles determined to ‘satisfy my mind most fully in everything concerning cannibalism,’ and wrote the Duchess of Somerset a frisky letter calculated to cause a sensation in Park Lane. He intended to go back, with Sophia, ‘and should we never be heard of more you may conclude we have been eaten.’ He told the Duchess how cannibalism was regulated by law and custom, in a public ceremony, and unaccompanied by drunkenness. According to Raffles’ Batak contacts, they ate the raw flesh of criminals after a regular trial and sentencing, cutting slices from the living body, and dipping them in sambul (chilli, salt and lime). Women did not partake, or only surreptitiously, and all agreed the flesh was delicious.

  Raffles was ‘enlightened’ about cannibalism. ‘However horrible eating a man may sound in European ears,’ he wrote to Marsden, ‘I question whether the party suffers so much, or the punishment itself is worse than the European tortures of two centuries ago [.ie. during the Inquisition]. I have always doubted the policy, and even the right of capital punishment among civilised nations; but this once admitted, and torture allowed, I see nothing more cruel in eating a man alive than in torturing him for days with mangled limbs and the like. Here they certainly eat him up at once, and the party seldom suffers for more than a few minutes.’