12 MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN LIGHT. 



Salang (Junk Ceylon) ; which was in course of being carried 

 out when "before the troops and ships were made ready, the 

 "war with France in i 781-2 led to its being neglected." 



The letter adds how, at the conclusion of the war, HASTINGS 

 took the matter up again. "But for the death of a friendly 

 Governor of Salang in December, 1785," Captain LiGHT — who 

 had however in the meanwhile been struck by the superior 

 advantages of Penang "as a barrier to the Dutch encroach- 

 ment'' — would, he says, "have taken both islands." 



In the end, Sir J. Macpherson, HASTINGS' successor, 

 " readily accepted Penang, but declined taking Salang" on 

 the two grounds : — 



(i) — that " it required a greater force" to keep ; 



(2)— that " as Goverment required a naval port with a port 

 of commerce, Penang is more favourable than Salang." 



There is no doubt that Captain Light honestly believed it 

 to be within the competence of the Rajah of Kedah to make 

 over to the East India Company the island of Penang, and 

 that nobody then questioned it. It is also certain that when 

 his ships — the Eliza, the Prince Henry and the Speedwell — 

 came to Penang, they went there with the Rajah's full consent 

 and support, though after some opposition from the Laxamana 

 and the Chiefs. Captain Light's Journal shews that the i ith, 

 1 2th and 13th July, 1786, were spent at Kedah "in embarking 

 the people and provisions" for this expedition. There was 

 nothing secret about it. Once arrived in Penang, he very 

 wisely acted with a sole view to the success and safety of 

 his young Settlement. His Diary describes the numerous 

 risks incurred in such an undertaking, and shows how piracy, 

 scanty provisions, disease, the hostility of the Dutch in Ma- 

 lacca, the jealousy of Kedah, had to be encountered in turn. 



One story that has obtained currency perhaps deserves 

 contradiction, for strange to say it is repeated in a Work like 

 Balfour's "Encyclopaedia of India" (Vol. Ill), 1885, published 

 by Bernhard Quaritch: — 



" Penang. — It was an uninhabited forest, when given 

 " hy the King of Quedah to Captain Light in I'jS^, as the 

 ^^ marriage portion of the King^s daughter whom Captain 



