1898.J on Sir Stamford Baffles and tlie Malay States. 757 



his biography has met with, and by the reluctance the critics have 

 shown to accept his claims to greatness at the just rate his services to 

 the country and the Empire both demand and justify. 



Well, he was only twenty -nine when, coming as a stranger, he 

 won the responsible ruler of India round to his views on a question 

 of external policy which entailed the despatch of the largest expedi- 

 tion up to then sent from the shores of India. He not only framed 

 the policy, but he was entrusted with the task of carrying it out. I 

 will not detain you with the details, but he discharged his task with 

 unerring wisdom and unsurpassed energy. He Foon discovered the 

 best route for the expedition to Batavia, one that had never previously 

 been used by Europeans. The officers of the Royal Navy laughed at 

 him, or rather, thought slightingly of his professed knowledge of this 

 sea route, and predicted nothing but misfortune, but he had the 

 laugh of them, for the route followed proved perfectly safe, and the 

 expedition reached the roadstead of Batavia without losing a ship or 

 even a spar. The ultimate success of the undertaking was, to a great 

 extent, dependent on the early arrival of the ships on the coast of 

 Java, and this was due mainly to the courage and confidence shown by 

 Raffles. 



If the service Raffles rendered throughout the ^^reparations of the 

 Java expedition was great, so w^as his reward. He deserved it, no doubt, 

 but public servants do not always get what they deserve. To do that, 

 every one of the higher powers would have to be a Lord Minto — just, 

 generous, with the will to bestow the merited reward and the courage 

 to stand or fall by those they nominate. Well, Raffles was made 

 Lieutenant-Governor, with the fullest powers, of the island of Java 

 immediately after its conquest. I do not intend to dwell on his 

 remarkable administration of that beautiful and still but partially- 

 developed island. It will suffice to say tbat in five years he pacified 

 the portion left under the native sultans in a manner that no former 

 Government had ever attempted, he raised the industrial and agri- 

 cultural prosperity of the island to the highest point, and he increased 

 the revenue sevenfold. His government of Java forms one of the 

 brightest pages in the history of Anglo-Indian administration, but the 

 Fates, or to be more precise, the Congress of Vienna, decreed that the 

 island should be restored to the Dutch, and thus, except as a model, 

 the work of Raffles, in probably the richest and most beautiful island 

 of the world, came to an end. 



This meant much more for Raffles than the loss of a Lieutenant- 

 Governorship. It signified the destruction of his hopes, of his 

 ambition, not for himself but for the country. Java was, in his 

 hands, to be the stepping-stone, the half-way house to China and to 

 Japan. It was to secure for England the position in those seas of an 

 undisputed supremacy. She was to be the beneficent mistress of the 

 countless islands of the Archipelago, and the security of her position 

 was to be based on the generosity of her commercial policy towards 

 the rest of the world. Raffles was a Free Trader before the phrase 

 Vol. XV. (No. 92.) 3 p 



