Excerpt From Life Of Sir Stamford Raffles II

Among the men who have established the political and commercial power of this country in the seas of India and China, no one would deny a foremost place to Stamford Raffles. This silent acquiescence is the tribute paid by national gratitude to the greatness of a name, when the precise nature of the man's work has been consigned to oblivion, or perhaps never appreciated. But the work in this case was an achievement well worth description for its own value, and not less noteworthy because accomplished by a humble individual in the teeth of personal prejudice and official opposition. Raffles owed nothing to favour or fortune; he was the architect of his own position and reputation; while the breadth of his views and the boldness of his deeds often brought him the censure of his narrow-minded and faint-hearted superiors. But the difficulties and malice which nearly crushed him during life enhance his posthumous fame, and to him will ever be given the chief, if not the sole, credit of instituting the measures which permanently assured our hold on the sea route to the Far East.

Excerpt From Life Of Sir Stamford Raffles - Clouds and Death


Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, to give him his full name, was the only son of Benjamin Raffles, who at the time of his famous son's birth, was captain of a merchant vessel trading between London and the West Indies.

Thus closed suddenly, and under the shadow of ill-health, pecuniary losses, and personal disappointment, the career of Sir Stamford Raffles. In years he had only just entered the period of middle life, and the work he had performed, as well as the experience he had gained, would have entitled him to take a further prominent part in the affairs of the East. Had his life been prolonged, there can be little doubt that he would have won fresh fame as a statesman on the floor of the House of Commons, or as an administrator in some new station beyond the seas. He had done enough, however, in his brief, and almost meteroic career, to obtain a place among the few great intellects and brave spirits that have pointed out for this country the path to empire in Southern Asia. Opposition, prejudice, aclumny during his lifetime and since his death, forgetfulness, and the haste which prevents our realising that our Empire came to us by inheritance from our forefathers, have not undone his work or diminished his reputation.

What was his work? Let the reader throw back his mind and consider all that Raffles had done, written, and inspired in the twenty-one years between the day on which he left the home-country, a young man, serious but hopeful, half-educated, he said in his modesty, but employing his time on ship-board in learning Malay, resolute to succeed by his own merit, but still more resolute to promote the interests of England -- and that early summer morning when his wife found him dead by the foot of the stairs at Highwood. His rise in the official service of the Company was extraordinarily rapid.

The marvel is that his detractors were so few; and great must have been the merit, subtle must have been the charm of manner, that at that period disarmed the enmity of the privileged ranks of the services and made so many of them his friends and admirers. His success, the resolution with which he carried his own views and policy into effect, were the more remarkable, because he never put on the hollow aspect of humility, so often used as a screen for ambition.

Such was the spirit in which he accomplished his life's mission. Sanguine in temperament, quick in his judgment, fixed in his resolutions, courageous in the execution of his plans, and undaunted in the face of difficulty, Raffles revealed on all critical occasions those qualities which are essential to the man of action, whether he be a statesman or a soldier.

The founding of Singapore was a great achievement -- great by reason of the method and the attendant conditions of its accomplishment. It was also a definite and concrete performance which everyone can see and understand. But, after all, this single act was not the real claim of Stamford Raffles to rank in the front group of English statesmen.

We may well ask ourselves in conclusion, whether in these days of checks and counter-checks upon individual initiative, when democratic institutions and interdependent councils combine with the telegraph to render it difficult to fasten responsibility on any one short of some ill-defined central authority, it is possible for such men as Stamford Raffles to obtain and to turn to account the opportunities that fall to their lot for the national aggrandisement. And if the individual statesman and soldier cannot obtain the chance, how is this Empire to be carried on, how are the triumphs of the past to be repeated in the future history of the world? With, however, the example and career fresh in our minds of this great man, this buoyant English statesman, who would have said, in the words of Shakespeare, "Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them," doubt and fear would be out of place. Not of such as Raffles was Tennyson's mind full when he wrote the lines --

"Pray God our greatness may not fail
Through craven fears of being great."