On this day, British administrator Stamford Raffies landed on a thinly populated island off the southern tip of Malaya, which would become the British colony of Singapore. Stamford had sailed from Kolkata, where he reached after a voyage that could have ended in shipwreck. He had convinced Lord Hastings, then governor-general of India, that the British needed to act immediately to protect its trade in the “Far East”.
He had sailed from Kolkata on December 7 with Hastings’ official approval to establish a post east of the Straits of Malacca. After landing in Singapore on January 29, he returned to his post at Bengkulu for three years and returned to Singapore in October 1822. In January 1823, his regulations stated: “The Port of Singapore is a free Port, and the trade thereof is open to ships and vessels of every nation... equally and alike to all.”
The Dutch gave up all claim to Singapore by a treaty of March 17, 1824.
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