600 AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF 
The British banner was not long afterwards unfurled to the 
Eastern breeze, and Europe was startled by the anomaly of nations 
which, although in amity at home, indulged in barbarous feuds 
abroad. 
At length the Portuguese were compelled to relinquish most of 
their conquests and to retire to Macao, while the British having 
the magnificent arena of India before them, gradually neglected 
their ports and factories to the Eastward, and finally abandoned 
them with the exception of Bencoolen. But when they had 
consolidated their power on the banks of the Ganges and on the plains 
of Southern India, the trade betwixt Hindostan, and the Nations 
and Islands to the Eastward of it, had assumed a new aspect, and 
had become almost identified with its prosperity. The Supreme 
Government of British India therefore lost no time in seeking 
out for an eligible position to the Eastward, on which to form 
a mercantile settlement. 
It was indeed full time—for .the Dutch had attacked Rhio in 
1783, and although they had been beaten back with the loss of 
a 54-gun ship, 500 men, their commander, and a civilian, they 
returned to the town some time afterwards and conquered it. 
Thus the vessels and produce from the Moluccas, Celebes, Borneo, 
and the Phillipines had now no established open port to resort to, 
with a certainty, as formerly, of meeting British and Native 
Merchants bringing produce from India. 
ORIGIN OF THE SETTLEMENTS. 
[1785]. When the Supreme Government of British India had 
thus resolved to form a Settlement to the Eastward, a corsiderable 
degree of difficulty was felt in carrying the purpose into effect, 
owing to the general ignorance which then prevailed in India 
respecting the wdiole of the Indo-chinese and Malayan countries. 
At this juncture Mr James Scott, a navigating merchant, offered 
his services, and they were accepted. But this gentleman, although 
better acquainted, perhaps, with the regions to the Eastward 
than any of his contemporaries, was but slenderly versed in their 
political relations—so little so that he at first proposed that the 
Settlement should be made at the Island of Junkceylon—the 
Salang of the natives. But it was found that this overestimated 
Island, formed a portion of the Siamese empire. It will be seen 
in the sequel that Captain Light committed a similar mistake witli 
reference to Pinang. 
Captain Francis Light who followed the same profession as 
Captain Scott, had been in the habit of trading to Keddah—the 
Quidah of the charts—and had conversed with the then Rajah or 
chief respecting the wish of the British to establish a trading poiq 
