Description
No one who is interested in the British Empire can fail to be impressed by the fact that of the many books which appear every year on Imperial History very few deal with the Crown Colonies. While much painstaking research has been devoted to the development of the self-governing Dominions, no adequate account has yet appeared of a very large number of the Crown Colonies. This book is an attempt to supply the want so far as British Malaya is concerned, for the period 1824 to 1867. The first four chapters form an introduction giving a brief account of the earlier history of the Straits Settlements from 1786 to 1824. The principal events in this period have already been dealt with by Swettenham, Egerton, Boulger and others, so that the introduction is intended merely to summarize, and in some points to supplement, their conclusions, as for example the account account of the legal and economic history of Penang and Singapore. The remaining ten chapters of the book are almost entirely based upon my own investigations.
In the matter of acknowledgements I have to express my deep sense of obligation for the assistance which I have received from Sir Charles Lucas, K.C.B., Sir Herbert Warren, K.C.V.o., Mr. C. O. Blagden, Professor Egerton, Professor Coupland, and Mr. E. M. Wrong, by their encouragement and valuable criticisms. I am also indebted to Mr. Blagden for the Appendix of Malayan documents which he discovered and translated at Malacca. They give the Naning War from the native point of view; but unfortunately they did not come into my possession until it was too late to use them in the writing of this book. I have to thank Mr. S. C. Hill, late of the Indian Educational Service, for the use of his unpublished manuscript on East Indian piracy. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Evans Lewin, the Librarian of the Royal Colonial Institute, and to Mr. Foster, the Librarian of the India Office Library, for their assistance in discovering and placing at my disposal a number of valuable documents.
ISBN: JOURNALOFTHEM
