70 
MEMOIR OF 
the power, prosperity, and grandeur of one of the 
principal and most respected states in Europe, has 
been thus wrested from the short usurpation of the 
French goTernment, added to the dominion of the 
British crown, and converted from a state of hostile 
machination and commercial competition, into an 
augmentation of British power and prosperity.” 
The government of this new “ empire” was be- 
stowed with a feeling and confidence honourable 
to the giver, and no less gratifying to the person 
in whom such a high and noble trust was reposed. 
His Lordship, says Lady EafHes in her Memoir, 
though partly pledged to another, declared he 
could not conscientiously withhold it from him 
who had won it ; and, therefore, as an acknow- 
ledgement of the services he had rendered, and 
in consideration of his pecidiar fitness for the 
office, he immediately ajipointed Mr. Raffles to 
it, under the title of Lieutenant-Governor of t^ava, 
and its dependencies.” 
Of his administration, and especially of his great 
services to natural science dming the four year's he 
held that office, we have aheady given some ac- 
count ; the causes of his returning to England have 
also been noticed ; as well as the employment of 
his leisure time there in writing his History. His 
great object in undertaking this laborious work, 
says his widow, “ was to record the information 
which he had collected regarding Java. The island 
had been transferred by the English government, in 
