TRAVELS WITH STAMFORD RAFFLES
Two hundred years ago this month, British statesman Stamford Raffles signed an agreement to take over a trading post called Singapore. NIGEL BARLEY goes back in time to meet him
NIGEL BARLEY encounters the man who founded modern Singapore 200 years ago
年前的這個月，英國政治家史丹福．萊佛士簽訂條約，接管一個名新為加坡的貿易站。Nigel Barley穿越時光，回到過去與他相見
ANYONE WHO TRAVELLED with Stamford Raffles would have found him lively, agreeable company but hard work. The British statesman was interested in too much, wanted to know everything and believed in knowledge, education and civilisation as only a poor boy who has had to fight to experience any of them can.
We know him as the founder of
Singapore – but our journey begins in
Penang, northwest Malaysia, in 1805. There, he worked for the East India Company (EIC) – and learned to detest the company and its ways.
Java was the great love affair of Raffles’ life and our greatest adventure was the invasion of the Indonesian island in 1811 to stop Napoleon using it as a base. The battles were bloody, and Raffles worked round the clock to reorganise and reform, always asking questions and embarking on great treks across the island. He found the beauty of Java’s nature and royal courts breathtaking. In later years, he would drag his wife – heavily pregnant – hundreds of kilometres through the Sumatran jungle just because he wanted to ask the Batak people whether they really were cannibals. Always, he wanted to see for himself.
On a trip to Bali, he invented the idea that it was Southeast Asia’s ‘living museum’ – a view still sold to tourists. Then, in revealing and surveying Borobudur, central Java’s huge Buddhist temple, he made known one of the wonders of the world. Everyone on his journeys would have been weighed down with flora and fauna, textiles, carvings and weapons that he collected – not just as souvenirs, but as evidence in his argument that Java was one of the world’s great civilisations and therefore deserved the ultimate honour of being retained in the British Empire after the defeat of Napoleon.
As an unrepentant imperialist, he has received a bad press and we always seek a low motive hiding behind Victorian declarations of high virtue. That’s partly his own fault since he often wrote to London in EIC terms about making money. But Singapore was not just grabbed; it was built according to plans he drew up himself and in the face of orders to the contrary. If we had accompanied him on his landing in 1819, we would have seen nothing except a pile of human skulls left by pirates and lots of rats. Yet the founder of one of the world’s great trading centres was the world’s worst businessman and everything he did lost money – for, at heart, Raffles was a true romantic.
You can be sure that, on those journeys, every evening at dinner he would talk your ear off about how to make things better for what he termed the neglected ‘little people’. He gets no monument in the UK – the EIC disliked him – but in Singapore it’s not just the Hotel, the Place, the Quay and the College that bear his name. The Raffles Institution, a school he founded for the education of locals, not just in British ways but in their own languages and cultures, is his true legacy. He always remained that little boy desperately convinced that education could save the world.
曾經跟英國政治家史丹福．萊佛士一同去他於1819年前往那裡，抵達時見，到的 除了旅行的人，都會認為他是個充滿活力、平易岸上一堆海盜遺下的人頭骨和大量老鼠之近人而勤懇的人。他的興趣極為廣泛，有極外，沒並有什麼值得注意的事物。他雖然一強的知求 欲，對任何事情都想認識。他出身手建立了世上數一數二的貿易中心，卻是個寒微，因此努力爭取獲得識知 、教育與接觸拙劣的生意，人 無做論 什麼，最終都以賠本文明的機會，並且對這一切深信不移。收說場。 到底，萊佛士在骨子裡其實是個
我們都知道萊佛士是建立新加坡的人，浪漫主義者。
不過我們的旅程將由1805年馬來亞北西 西 這一點是毫無疑問的。他人在旅途上，部的檳城開始。他在這裡的東印度公司工每晚吃餐晚 時，總是高談闊論，對其他人滔作，不過之後對他 公司的作風深感厭惡。滔不絕地講述如何為他口中備受忽視「的 小
爪哇是萊佛士一生鍾情的地方，而我人兒」謀更多幸福。英國沒有為他豎立銅像們旅程中最刺激的一段，英就是國於1811或紀念碑之類，因為東印度公司不喜歡。他年進佔該島，以阻止拿破崙利用該島作為但是在新加坡，不單有酒店，還有購物中基地。戰事非常慘烈，萊佛士不眠不休地心碼、 頭和專上學院均以他命名。萊佛士書工作，不斷進行各種重組和改，革 不斷提院是他為當地人設立的學校，並非只提供出問題；他不辭勞苦，多次踏上橫越爪哇的英式教育，還教授地語當 的 言和文化，可說長途旅程，以便持局主 大 。他由此發現這是遺他 下的真正遺產。遠他永 是那個百分個島嶼壯麗的自然之美，以及當地室王 的百信深 教育可以拯界救世 的小男。孩莊嚴堂皇。多年之後，他拖著身懷六甲、腹大便便的妻子，走過數百公里的路程，穿越蘇門答臘叢林，目的只是為了巴向 塔克人查詢他們是否食人族。他總是這樣，凡事都要見眼 為實。
他在前往峇里的旅途上，忽發奇想，認為那個地方是東南亞的「活博物館」，這個想法直至今天仍被用來向遊客宣傳。其他後令位哇於爪 中部的佛塔遺跡婆羅浮重屠 見天日，並派人加以勘察，令世人重新認識這座令人歎為觀止的古代建築奇蹟。他沿途搜集了不少物品，有動方物標本，紡織品雕、刻品、武少等，令與他同行的人的行李增磅不少。這些東西非並 旅遊紀，念品而用來證明他提出的論點：爪哇是世上一個非常偉大的文明，因此十分值得尊重，應理 在打敗拿破崙之後仍然被保留在不列顛帝國內。
他是至死不悔的帝國主義者，因此在輿論上獲得不少劣評，而我們總喜歡在維多利亞時代所宣揚的崇高道德背，找後 尋卑下的動機。這種情況有部分原因應歸咎於他本人，因為他經常去信倫敦，以東印度公司那套慣用的詞彙來談論賺錢大計。可是新加坡並非是只 一個隨意攫取而地來的方，而是他接受上級的授命，並按照他親自
訂下的計劃來建立的城市。如果我們隨同