INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



BY THE PRESIDENT, 



THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON HOSE M. A. 



Delivered ox the 28th February, 1878. 



IE I understand aright the duty which devolves upon me 

 to-night in the position with which you have honoured me, 

 I have two things to do. The first is to explain, at some greater 

 length than has been done hitherto, the objects which the pro- 

 moters have had in view in seeking to establish the Straits 

 Asiatic Society ; and the second is to point out the means by 

 which it is hoped these objects may be attained. 



The primary object of the Society, as defined in the Rules, is 

 " to investigate subjects connected with the Straits of Malacca 

 and the neighbouring countries/' The expression " neighbour- 

 ing countries" was selected as being a wide and comprehensive 

 term, in order that the Society mig^ht feel as little restricted as 

 possible in accepting communications respecting any part of 

 Southern and Eastern Asia. But no doubt the attention of the 

 Society will be chiefly concentrated upon the Peninsula of 

 Malacca, as far North as the Tenasserim Provinces, and the 

 great Indian Archipelago, that wonderful chain of Equatorial 

 Islands stretching from Sumatra on the West to New Guinea 

 of the East. Science is greatly in want of some general term 

 to describe this great portion of the earth's surface, including 

 both the continental and the insular divisions of it. For, though 

 the different parts of it vary from one another in a gTeat many 

 particulars, yet they are in no slight degree homogeneous, and 

 it would be a great convenience to be able to speak of them all 

 under one common name. Several have been suggested, and of 

 them all I prefer the name ' Malaya/ as being at once the most 

 simple, and the most intelligible. For throughout this whole 

 wide-spread district, the language spoken is either Malay or 

 some closely allied form of speech ; and Malay itself is to a very 

 great extent the lingua franca — the common medium of comma- 



