John Bastin - Raffles and Hastings: Private Exchanges Behind the Founding of Singapore

RAFFLES AND HASTINGS

Private Exchanges behind the
Founding of Singapore

JOHN BASTIN

2014 National Library Board, Singapore, and John Sturgus Bastin
Design 2014 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd

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First published in 2012 as The Founding of Singapore 1819 by National Library Board, Singapore.

National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

Bastin, John Sturgus, 1927
Raffles and Hastings : Private exchanges behind the founding of Singapore / John Bastin. Singapore : National Library Board Singapore [and] Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2014
pages cm
ISBN : 978-981-4561-440 (paperback)
1. Raffles, Thomas Stamford, Sir, 17811826 Correspondence.
2. Hastings, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of, 17541826 Correspondence.
3. Singapore History 18191867 Sources. I. Title.
DS598.S75
959.5703 dc23 OCN 884843481

Printed in Singapore by Craft Print International Ltd

Frontispiece: First page of letter written by Stamford Raffles to the Marquess of Hastings, 22 June 1819 (6 leaves, 240 200mm, reproduced at 80%; see full transcription on page 93). Courtesy of the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland.

Frontispiece: Letter from Raffles to Hastings

NOTE ON THE LETTERS

The 34 letters published in this book have been transcribed from the originals as closely as possible. Editorial insertions and clarifications are enclosed in square brackets, while longer explanatory notes are indicated by superscript numbers. Variations in spelling that occur in the manuscript letters, such as place names (Singapore/Sincapore), are preserved faithfully in the transcriptions, as are all punctuation marks (including Raffless liberal use of dashes), raised letters and capitalisation.

Most abbreviations, such as Govt (Government) and Servt (Servant), are clear from context; three that are rarely encountered today may be worth pointing out here: ultimo/ulto (last month); instant (this month); and &c (et cetera, often to shorten the formal valedictions preceding the signature).

The layout of the letters is also preserved as far as possible. In formal correspondence of Raffles and Hastingss day, the recipients name and title were typically included at the bottom of the letter or at the foot of the first page (as seen, for example, in the facsimile facing the title page). In the transcriptions here they are always printed at the end of the letter.

This account of the founding of Singapore is based largely on Raffless unpublished private letters to the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in India, Francis, 1st Marquess of Hastings, preserved in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland. The letters are to be distinguished from Raffless official despatches to the Supreme Government in Bengal, his private letters to Charlotte Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, and other documents in the British Library, as well as letters to his agent, John Tayler, and Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, in the National Library Singapore.

The part played by Hastings in the founding of Singapore and his relationship with Raffles are essential themes of the book. The text follows the chronological sequence of Raffless letters to him, but in order to provide an explanation of their contents there is a brief introductory account of Raffless attempts to extend British political influence in Sumatra since it was the rejection of these plans by Lord Hastings, and the adoption of an alternative policy of securing British power in the Straits of Melaka, which led to the founding of Singapore.

The book contains a good deal of original documentation, but it does not pretend to offer a comprehensive account of the founding of Singapore since it omits all reference to the correspondence between Lord Hastings and the Governor-General of the Netherlands India, Baron G.A.G.P. van der Capellen, as well as details of the protracted negotiations between the British and Netherlands governments which led to the Treaty of London in 1824 and the recognition of Singapore as a British possession. These subjects have been examined by the Dutch scholar P.H. van der Kemp in his numerous publications, and by Harry J. Marks in his monograph, The First Contest for Singapore 18191824 (The Hague, 1959).

I wish to thank John, Marquess of Bute, for granting me permission to publish Raffless private letters to the Marquess of Hastings in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart, and Mr. Andrew McLean, former Head of Collections at Mount Stuart, and Miss Lynsey Nairn, Collections Assistant, for their help. I also wish to express my gratitude to the British Library for permission to quote from Raffless letters to Charlotte Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, and the National Library Singapore for permission to publish Raffless letters to Lord Lansdowne and John Tayler.

John Bastin

I trust the time is not far distant when the real value and object of the Settlement at Singapore will be fully and justly appreciated, by all parties, and that in the completion of these legitimate objects your Lordship will derive satisfaction from the contemplation of the important benefits conferred on the Commerce of Great Britain at a period when it stood so much in need of effectual aid and support

Sir Stamford Raffles, in Bengkulu (Bencoolen),
to the Marquess of Hastings, 12 August 1820

Fig. 1
Map of Asia and Its Islands (detail), 1794, by J.B.B. dAnville.
Published in Thomas Kitchins General Atlas (London, 1797).

Fig. 2
Map of the East India Isles (detail), 1801, by John Cary.
Published in Carys New Universal Atlas (London, 1808).