1898.] on Sir Stamford Raffles and the Malay States. 759 



fortunes of the West Coast. But while he did this his energy, his 

 vigilance and his audacity remained undiminished for his great and 

 final struggle with England's great rival in the East. He saw that 

 there was no one else who would essay the task, and, with his 

 buoyant spirit, he assumed the direction of the necessary national 

 policy in this quarter of the Far East. Well for England was it 

 that he did so, as the opportunity he saw, if it had been then lost, 

 might never have recurred. 



The restoration of Java to the Dutch was inevitable ; great as 

 was the loss and the pity, we could not retain it except by setting a 

 bad example to the other European Powers who wished to benefit by 

 the prostration of France after Waterloo. But with the restoration 

 of Java we had done all that the most exacting sense of justice could 

 require of us. There was no reason for us then to sit down supinely 

 while the Dutch extended the area of their authority and made their 

 position the base of aggressive operations at our expense. They 

 recovered, by. the Castlereagh Convention, Malacca and Java. They 

 found the island of Java in a flourishing condition. On the records of 

 the Government stood the facts as to the schemes and views of Eaffles. 

 They took over his surplus, and, to the best of their capacity, they 

 also took over his projects. They seized Billiton, they laid hands 

 on Banca, they asserted their jurisdiction at Palimbany, and they 

 planted their flag at Rhio. In this manner they secured much 

 more than they ever possessed before. Their hold on the Straits of 

 Malacca was tightening, and if the British authorities had remained 

 inactive for but a few months longer, there seems no reason to doubt 

 that they would have brought under their flag the whole of the 

 territories of Johore, within which stood the peerless harbour and 

 roadstead of Singapore. 



At that supremely critical moment Eaffles reached Bencoolen. 

 He took in the whole situation at a glance. The Dutch, he said, had 

 scarcely left us a foot to stand on, but there was still time to secure 

 that foot. He reached Bencoolen in March 1818 ; he at once addressed 

 the Governor-General, the Marquis of Hastings, who had, in the matter 

 of the Gillespie charges, shown himself none too well disposed towards 

 Raffles, and in July he was invited to come to Calcutta to discuss the 

 situation. RafiQes did not waste a day. Immediately on receipt of 

 this invitation he hastened to Calcutta in a miserable country boat, 

 and laid his plans and projDOsals before Lord Hastings. He suc- 

 ceeded first of all in making his peace, as he termed it, with the 

 Governor-General, who went so far as to say, " Sir Stamford, you can 

 depend on me." But his second success was the greater, for he 

 obtained the Governor-General's authoritv to counteract Dutch 

 encroachments by establishing British influence and authority in 

 Acheen and at Rhio. In notifying this news to a frieud he added, 

 "At Rhio, I fear, we may be too late." Within little more than six 

 months of his return to the East, Raffles had thus obtained permission 

 to do what no one else would do, viz;, to keep the Straits open for 



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