42 Life of Sir Stamford Raffles. 



of the institution, and the following extract from the address voted 

 to his Lordship on that occasion, will evince the grateful sense 

 entertained by the mennbers, as well as the intrinsic value, of Mr. 

 R.'s exertions in the re-establishment of the Society. 



*' Reformed by his (the President's) genius and perseverance — 

 guided by his talents and example, re-established on its original 

 and extensive foundations, and enriched by the addition of a 

 number of new and valuable members — the Society flatters itself 

 that a new life and vigour will soon pervade its whole system, and 

 that although the old trunk still remains, the grafting thereon of 

 some new branches, transplanted from a rich and fertile soil, will 

 shortly tend to produce a greater abundance of fruit and of finer 

 quality than formerly." 



At the Anniversary-meeting in 1813, held on the 24th of April, 

 Mr. Raffles delivered an address of which we shall now present a 

 brief outline. 



This discourse commences with a review of the progress of 

 the Society, from its first institution down to the Anniver- 

 sary ; in which the principal contents of the first six volumes 

 of its Transactions are noticed. Dr. Horsfield's labours in 

 investigating the natural history of Java are then mentioned, 

 and also the contents of the seventh volume of the Transactions 

 just sent to press ; and next, after an affectionate eulogy on his 

 departed friend. Dr. Ley den, by whom the last article in the 

 volume, a sketch of Borneo, had been prepared, during his pas- 

 sage with the expedition from Malacca to Batavia, the President 

 proceeds, — regarding the demise of Dr. L. and that of Dr. Hunter, 

 the late secretary to the Society, not as justifiable grounds for 

 supineness, but as incentives to more strenuous exertion, — to 

 point out the objects to which the attention of the Society should 

 be directed. These it was evidently his design should be, the 

 collection and arrangement of every species of information re- 

 specting Java and the adjacent countries, for the purposes, 

 mainly, of obtaining the best data on which to found the im- 

 provement of the civil and moral condition of the inhabitants 

 and settlers, and the advancement of the island's import- 

 ance as a British possession. He accordingly directs the atten- 



