OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH CONNECTION WITH MALAYA.
[The following "Outline History" has been compiled in the hope that it may be of assistance to those, both in and out of the Colony, who are anxious to know something of its antecedents. The information has been collected from a variety of sources, and, so far as is known, can nowhere be found in the form of a suc- einet and connected narrative here adopted].
GENERAL.
The history of the Colony is, properly speaking, but the latest chapter in the history of the British intercourse with Malaya, now extending over 280 years, and this intercourse may be divided into three periods, viz.:—
- That of individual trading (1602-1681).
- That of trading closely connected with the East India Company (1681-1762).
- That of more direct-political and military-intervention (since 1762).
A brief reference to each of these periods will best serve as preface to the history of the Colony.
The earliest dealings of our countrymen with Malaya (1602-1681)1602 were entirely of a commercial character, not excepting the quasi-ambassadorial Commissions of Queen Elizabeth and her Successor to Sir James Lancaster, Captain Best and others in this first period. These so-called Envoys were, in point of fact, ship-owners and merchants, sailing, almost always at their own charge, under the encouragement of the English Sovereign, but without having, so far as is known, any other than commercial objects committed to them, and certainly without any success in obtaining other than commercial results from their missions.
At the time when these English navigators first appeared on the scene (1602), they had been preceded by the Portuguese as con-
