History of Penang, part one

My thanks to my fellow facebooker, Jeffery Seow, for highlighting this story which had appeared initially in the Straits Echo in 1903. It was about the early history of Penang, something that many of us today are not aware of as these were events that had happened more than two centuries ago. Just as the story then was serialised over several weeks, I too shall reproduce them here over several posts. Here is the first one which appeared on 17 August 1903.

HISTORY OF PENANG.
(Specially written for the Straits Echo.)

The first mention of Penang in the history of Malaya is in the year of grace 1592. We find after searching the records at the India Office that Captain Lancaster, afterwards Sir James Lancaster, was one of the first English voyagers in these waters, in his ship, the Edward Bonaventure, having come for purposes of trade. But to Francis Drake belonged the honour of living the first Englishman to bring his ship to the East Indies, for he made his memorable trip round the world twelve years previously. 

The Edward Bonaventure was one of three ships sent out from England in 1591 to the East to trade with the natives for pepper and other spices, in which Malaya abounded. The expedition reached Zanzibar at the close of 1591, and leaving it in February of the following year did not cast anchor again till June, when the commander found a harbour off Pulau Rimau to the south  of the Island of Penang, or Pulau Pinang. Scurvy seems to have been raging on board the ships at the time, as Capt. Lancaster remained at his anchorage till the end of August, losing no less than 26 of the crew from the ravages of scurvy. It is a singular fact that the very first English trader of Malaya should have found his way direct to this little out-of-the-way and then uninhabited island, which  destiny has shown was to become such a famous and prosperous port of call in our time. Capt. Lancaster loaded his ships chiefly with pepper taken from Portuguese and Peguan vessels which he plundered off Perak, where three of them are said to have "laden a cargo of pepper.” His own ship and its two companions were, however, lost. The notes of Lancaster's voyage, and still more the instructive and interesting accounts of the profits to be made, first convinced Englishmen of the great advantages that were to be derived from Malayan trade. Eight years after Lancaster's voyage to Malaya, the famous East India Company was formed with a charter for fifteen years (afterwards extended) chiefly with the object of trading with Malaya: and this Company sent out in 1601 the same captain (afterwards Sir James) Lancaster as "admiral of four vessels,” with the celebrated Davis as Pilot. Lancaster first made for the Nicobars and afterwards, when loaded with pepper, sent home two of his ships from Achin (1602), where he was well received. 

In a little country place in Suffolk there was born in the year 1740 a little boy who was to play a most important part in his after life. That boy's name was Francis Light and he received his name at his baptism on December 15th 1740. Nothing is known of young Light's parents. They probably died when he was quite young, as he was adopted and educated by a certain William Negus, a relative of Milton, and son of Colonel Francis Negus, who held a high position at the Court of George I and who acquired the large estates of Dallingho, (Light's birthplace) and Milton by his  marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William Churchill Esq., M.P. of Woodbridge, Patent Printer to the King. Young Light, after his adoption, was sent, like other sons of Suffolk squires, to the Woodbridge Grammar School, but he left early in life, joining the Navy as a midshipman of H.M.S. Arrogant in 1761. He left the Navy four years after, and we then find him a passenger on board the East Indiaman Clive bound for the East,  where he seems to have been before. He arrived at Calcutta in 1765 and was immediately given the command of an East Indiaman, the Country Ship, trading between  India, Lower Siam and Malaya. That Capt Light was a linguist of no mean order is evidenced by the fact that shortly after his arrival in the East he became conversant with the Siamese and Malay languages, on account of which he was held in high esteem by the Siamese and Malay chiefs with whom  he traded, the former conferring on him the rank and title of nobility. Capt. Light traded chiefly with Junk Ceylon, or Salang, a large island occupying a conspicuous position in 8°N. lat: at the north-west elbow of the Peninsula which he eventually made his headquarters till 1785, living mainly among the Malays and adapting himself to their ways and customs. In 1772, at Junk Ceylon, he married Martina Rozells, a lady whose parentage has been the Subject of much controversy, but owing to her Portuguese name she is generally considered to have been a Eurasian of Siam, a Portuguese, or Malay of Portuguese descent. There were Portuguese missionaries in these parts at that time and it may be that she was not Portuguese at all, but simply a Siamese or Malay who was baptized with a Portuguese name much in the  same way as is done to this day by English missionaries and others in Africa and elsewhere.

It was in 1771 that Captain Light, having as his headquarters Salang, saw the necessity of establishing an emporium for the English in these parts, a need which had not escaped the notice of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India. Other European nations had established factories and Settlements in Malaya, the Dutch in particular maintaining an ascendancy on Sumatra and other parts of the Archipelago. Light made a suggestion to the Governor-General of India for securing Penang as “a convenient magazine for eastern trade.” but it appears not, to have met with approval at the time. But Light continued to press the matter as may be seen from his correspondence.

In 1780 he went to Bengal to see Warren Hastings and this time proposed the alternative of an English Settlement on Junk Ceylon as it was a flourishing trading emporium of some 50,000 people. In this he was supported by James Scott who modestly describes himself as “struggling to pay off some incumbrances incurred in the war, and formerly a trading master but otherwise little known." Light was well received by the Governor-General, but arrangements were interrupted by the French and Dutch wars, when a joint settlement would have come to pass had not the widow, sons and nephews of Phya Simons, Governor of Salang, refused to assume the Government, and died just at that time -- 1785.

Numerous expeditions came out to Malaya and trade generally increased until the time came when the East India Company found that with the opposition with the Dutch and Portuguese who had settlements on the Peninsula, and Sumatra a trading centre was necessary for the company to maintain its position in Malaya. In 1784 Mr. Kinloch was sent by the Bengal Government to found a Settlement in Acheen, but owing to the hostility of the natives he had to return without effecting his mission. Captain Light, who was in Calcutta on the return of the Kinloch mission, immediately, in a letter dated 15th February 1786, pointed out the aggression and encroachment of the Dutch, which now extended from Point Romania to the Krian River, and that they had settlements and factories on the Sumatra side of the Straits and so there was no place left to choose from but Junk Ceylon. Acheen and Quedah (Kedah). Mr. Light, in his letter, goes on to point out that before he could form a Settlement in Acheen it would be necessary to subdue all  the Chiefs. Junk Ceylon, which belonged to Siam, was, he added, a place which would take some six or seven years before it would be sufficiently cleared and cultivated to supply a fleet with provisions, but it was, in his opinion, rich in tin ore and easily fortified. As the East India Company had already been successful in its application to the Rajah of Quedah for a cession of Penang he made use of his influence and was now able to report that the Rajah was prepared to cede the Island of Penang for 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. On the 23rd February 1786 the Governor-General in Council approved of the settlement of Penang and a correspondence ensued between the Indian Government and the Rajah of Quedah as to the terms  of the treaty. It was finally arranged, subject to the approval of the Board of Directors in London, that Penang should be ceded for $6.000 per annum to the East India Company, who agreed to station an armed vessel in the Straits to guard Penang Island and the Quedah coasts. Free trade was to be allowed, and anyone would be at liberty to trade on the Kedah Coast without any restrictions from the company. 

The Dutch and Portuguese only allowed trading to be done at their own settlements and nowhere else.

(To be continued).