THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND BEYOND
By SIR FRANK SWETTENHAM, K.C.M.G.
There is no more fascinating subject than the origin and development of English interests in the Far East. It is a theme which lives and moves, and, like an attractive personality, appeals to the imagination, the feelings, and the intelligence, by its romantic past, its brilliant present, and its enormous possibilities. Every detail is instinct with the glamour and the sunshine of those distant lands, the civilization and the customs of strange and deeply-interesting peoples. The story of English adventure and English achievement in the Far East has yet to be written; this is but a sign, to indicate the road which for centuries has carried our people and our interests, and must continue to carry them in ever-increasing numbers and importance.
When, in 1819, Stamford Raffles acquired the island of Singapore for the East India Company, his main object was to found a British station to counteract the growing influence of the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago. The Company already owned the island of Penang, at the western entrance to the Straits of Malacca, and they also possessed a strip of territory at Malacca, on the west of the Malay Peninsula, and Bencoolen, a station on the south-west coast of Sumatra. Bencoolen, originally selected (in 1684) as the site for a trading station to enable the Company's agents to purchase pepper in Achin, became, in 1785, a dependency of
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