RAFFLES, SIR THOMAS STANFORD (178 , English administrator, founder of Singapore, was born on July 5, 1781, on board a merchantman commanded by his father, Benjamin Raffles, when off Port Morant, Jamaica. He became a clerk in the office of the East India Company, and in 1805 was sent out to Penang as assistant secretary to the first governor. In addition to his duties as secretary he acted as Malay inter preter; and in 1807 he became secretary.
In 1808 his health gave way, and he was ordered for a change to Malacca. The East India Company had decided to abandon Malacca, and orders had been issued to dismantle it. Raffles drew up a report explaining the great importance of Malacca, and urging in the strongest manner its retention. Lord Minto was so impressed by the report that he at once gave orders for suspending the evacuation of Malacca, and in 1809 the company decided to reverse its own decision. In June 1810 Raffles, of his own accord, proceeded to Calcutta, where Lord Minto gave him the kindest reception. Raffles remained four months in Calcutta, and gained the complete confidence of the governor-general. He brought Lord Minto round to his opinion that the conquest of the island of Java, then in the hands of the French, was an imperative necessity. To prepare the way for the expedition, Raffles was sent to Malacca as "agent to the Governor-General with the Malay States." He did his work well and thoroughly— even to the extent of discovering that the short and direct route to Batavia by the Caramata passage would be a safe one for the fleet to take.
In August 1811 the expedition, accompanied by Lord Minto, and with Sir Samuel Auchmuty in command of the troops (I L000 in number, half English and half Indian), occupied Batavia with out fighting. On the 25th a battle was fought at Cornelis, a few miles south of Batavia, and resulted in a complete English victory. On Sept. 18 the French commander, General Janssens, formally capitulated at Samarang, and the conquest of the island was corn pleted. Lord Minto's first act was to appoint Raffles lieutenant zovernor of Java. From September 181i until his departure for England in March 1816, Raffles ruled this large island with con spicuous success. He increased the revenue eightfold at the same time that he abolished transit dues, reduced port dues to one-third and removed the fetters imposed on trade and intercourse with the Javanese by Dutch officialdom. In his own words, his ad
ministration aimed at being "not only without fear, but without reproach." He had a still greater ambition, which was, in his own words, "to make Java the centre of an Eastern insular Empire," and to establish the closest relations of friendship and alliance with the Japanese, whom he described as "a highly pol ished people, considerably advanced in science, highly inquisitive and full of penetration." It is interesting to note that when another great Englishman, Rajah Brooke, began his career in Sarawak in 1838, he announced: "I go to carry Sir Stamford Raffles's views in Java over the whole Archipelago." In November 1817 Raffles quitted England on his return to the East, where the lieutenant-governorship of Fort Marlborough (Sumatra) had been kept in reserve for him. His administration of Sumatra (1818-23) was characterized by the same breadth of view, consistency of purpose and energy in action that had made his government of Java remarkable. He had not, however, done with the Dutch, who, on their recovery of Java, endeavoured to establish a complete control over the Eastern archipelago, and to oust British trade. This design Sir Stamford set himself to baffle, and by a stroke of genius and unrivalled statecraft he stopped for all time the Dutch project of a mare clausum by the acquisi tion and founding of Singapore on Jan. 29, 1819.
In 1824 Raffles returned to England to vindicate his acts to the East India Company. The court exonerated him from the charges made against him, but censured him for "his precipitate and unauthorized emancipation of the Company's slaves," and after his death charged his widow to pay Lio,000 for various items, which included the expense of his mission to found Singapore. Harassed by these personal affairs, he still found time to help in the foundation of the zoological society in London. His fine Su matra collection formed its endowment. He died July 5, 1826.
See Lady Raffles, Memoir of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (183o) ; D. C. Boulger, Life of Sir Stamford Raffles (1897) ; Hugh Egerton, Sir Stamford Raffles (1899) ; J. Buckley, Records of Singapore (1903).