OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH CONNECTION WITH MALAYA. 
[ Tue following “Outline History”? has been compiled in the 
hope that it may be of assistance to those, both in and out of the 
Colony, whe are anxious to know something of its antecedents. 
The information has been collected from a variety of sources, and, 
so far as is known, can nowhere be found in the form of a suc- 
cinct and connected narrative here adopted |. 
GENIE RAVES 
The history of the Colony is, properly speaking, but the latest 
chapter in the history of the British intercourse with Malaya, now 
extending over 280 years, and this intercourse may be divided into 
three periods, viz. :— 
1. That of individual trading (1602-1684). 
2. That of trading closely connected with the East India Com- 
pany (1684-1762). 
3. That of more direct—political and military—intervention 
(since 1762). 
A brief reference to each of these periods will best serve as 
preface to the history of the Colony. 
The earliest dealings of our countrymen with Malaya ( 1602- 
1684) were entirely of a commercial character, not excepting the 
quasi-ambassadorial Commissions of Queen ExuizaBeTH and her 
Successor to Sir James Lancaster, Captain Best and others in 
this first period. These so-called Envoys were, in point of fact, 
ship-owners and merchants, sailing, almost always at their own 
charge, under the encouragement of the English Sovereign, but 
without having, so far as is known, any other than commercial 
objects committed to them, and certainly without any success 
in obtaining other than commercial results from their missions. 
At the time when these English navigators first appeared on the 
scene (1602), they had been preceded by the Portuguese as con- 
1602. 
