SIR THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES. 19 



thus detailed our plan, we have, before commencing, 

 to entreat those friends by whom this imperfect 

 sketch may be seen, that they will forgive any inac- 

 curacies or misrepresentations ; nor attribute to any 

 motive except that of doing justice, whatever may be 

 said of the character of an individual, whose writings 

 had conveyed a very high impression, which was still 

 farther confirmed by a short but lively remembered 

 intercourse, for a few months previous to his untimely 

 decease. 



THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES, the son of Ben- 

 jamin Raffles, one of the oldest Captains in the West 

 India Trade, was bora at sea on the 5th July 1781, 

 off the harbour of Port Morant, in the Island of Ja- 

 maica. Little appears to be known of his family 

 except its antiquity, and that its earlier members 

 passed through life with unblemished reputation. 

 Of his youth previous to the age of fourteen, when 

 he entered into active business, few traits seem to 

 have been recollected, beyond a sedateness of tem- 

 per, and perseverance in his studies superior to that 

 of his schoolfellows, with a vivid apprehension of the 

 incidents which occurred. During this period he 

 studied under the charge of Dr Anderson, who kept 

 a respectable academy near Hammersmith ; and, at 

 the early age we have mentioned, he was placed as 

 an extra clerk in the East India House. 



When we consider the very short portion of his 

 early life, wherein he could regularly gain the rudi- 



