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 1 
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 Ruffles, one of the oldest Captains in the West 
India Trade, was horn at sea on the 5th July 1781, 
off ihe harbour of Port Morant, in the Island of Ja- 
maica, Little appears to he 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, ami perseverance in his studies superior to that 
of his school fellows, with a vivid apprehension of the 
incidents which occurred. During this period lie 
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- 
