THE BRITISH COLONIES IN THE STRAITS OE MALACCA. 003 
coming from these different quarters of, perhaps, unlimited aid, 
inflated the Keddah Rajah with unwonted conceptions of his own 
importance, and we may readily suppose tended seriously to 
embarrass the negociations he was carrying on with Captain Light. 
It was perhaps well for the Rajah that he returned to less rash 
Malayan counsellors, than were then in his durbar, and that by an 
alliance with the British he was rescued from the anarchy which 
must have been the consequence of the conflicting aims of the na¬ 
tions just alluded to. It is quite obvious that neither the French 
nor the Dutch could have long defended the Rajah from his 
enemies by sea and land, and that they would soon either vo¬ 
luntarily or by compulsion have left him to his hard reckoning 
with Siam, while on the other hand as future events proved, the 
proximity to his gates of a strong maritime power like that of the 
English could not fail to be, if not a natural, at least a moral 
protection to him against aggression from his neighbours for so 
long as he did not provoke it. 
Meanwhile Captain Light having been pressed by the Supreme 
government for more positive information respecting the true 
political condition of Keddah was constrained to declare that 
the Rajah of Keddah had ever acknowledged the Siamese 
as Lords paramount, that its Kings originally came from Ivlenang- 
kabow in Sumatra (a) and had always through fear paid homage 
to the rival nations of Ava and Siam—that the then Rajah was a 
mere puppet in the hand of his chiefs, that his illegitimacy, his 
mother having been a slave girl, was against his accession to the 
Rajahship, that his uncles had tried to depose him but had been 
probably thwarted in that object by the Siamese—and that this 
Rajah was weak, timid, avaricious, and oppressive, and so devoid of 
faith that he would not perhaps scruple to sacrifice Pinang to 
Siamese intrigue ! Keddah then contained 40,000 souls and up¬ 
wards as reported, probably 80,000 (//). 
Captain Light took possession of Pinang on the 17th day of 
July 1780. The expedition landed at Point Panaga where Fort 
Cornwallis and the town now stand, a spot of jungle land was 
cleared and a flagstaff was erected. 
11th August 1786. Soon afterwards, a party was collected 
consisting of the following gentlemen—Captain Wall of the H. C. 
S. Vansfttart, Captain Lewin of the H. C. I. Vanlentyne with his 
passsengers, besides local servants of government. 
The British flag was then hoisted, and “the island was finally 
“ and formally taken possession of in the name of His Majesty, 
“ and for the use of the Hon. East India Company.” 
(a) That Malays emigrated from Sumatra to Keddah is highly probable, but the 
Keddah history or annals (vide translation) gives a different origin to the chief of 
that country. 
(b) It is the men, often only the able bodied men, of whom a census is taken by 
native Malayan chiefs and princes. The number in this case therefore would 
perhaps be as above, the double of 40, 
