Raffles and the Reprieve of Malacca
The busy trading hub of Malacca was to be consigned to history, until Stamford Raffles saw that history was one of its assets.
1808
King George III 1760-1820
The busy trading hub of Malacca was to be consigned to history, until Stamford Raffles saw that history was one of its assets.
1808
King George III 1760-1820
Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) is known today as the founder of Singapore, but his first foray into statecraft came when he was still in his late twenties. In 1808, as assistant secretary to the Governor of Penang he penned an impassioned report which saved Malacca, modern-day Melaka in Malaysia, from oblivion.
abridged
IT was about this time that he tried his ’prentice hand in statesmanship. Feeling seedy in health, he got leave to take a short sea trip as far as Malacca Town.* Malacca had been marked for destruction by the authorities in Penang,* for Penang trade needed fostering, and Malacca was an irritating little rival to the new and pet Settlement. Abandon Malacca, and force its stream of trade towards the favoured centre. That was the policy.
The Supreme Government at Bengal, a thousand miles away, had supinely acquiesced in the selfish representations of the Penang traders. An edict had gone forth that every public building in Malacca was to be razed to the ground,* and the population were, practically, to be driven away from their ancient home. When Raffles came for his few weeks of holiday, the sheer folly of this policy forced itself upon him. To his mind Malacca appeared as a natural door for commerce in the Straits.*
Malacca is a city on the southwest coast of the Peninsular Malaysia (West Malaysia). To the west, across the Malacca Straits, lies the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, and beyond that the Bay of Bengal and India. See Google Maps.
Penang Island, formerly the Prince of Wales’s Island, lies in the Malacca Straits, just off the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, and some 260 miles up the coast from Malacca City. It is not to be confused with Pedang, a city on the far western side of Sumatra.
Much of this work had already been done in 1807, but happily it was incomplete when Raffles arrived in 1808. His intervention saved some of Malacca’s most important tourist attractions, including the 16th century Formosa fortress built by the Portuguese, and the Stadhuys and Clock Tower in Dutch Square.
The Straits of Malacca, now between Malaysia on the east and Sumatra in Indonesia on the west.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Raffles go to Malacca in 1808?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Stamford Raffles felt unwell. His liver was affected. He went to Malacca to recover.