ABSTRACT
The founding of Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles on 29 January 1819 is a cornerstone of modern British and Southeast Asian history. As an historical event it signified the establishment of the first international free trade port in Asia. The interpretation of Raffles' three objectives for Singapore, as the means of securing for Britain an empire of free trade, originated with his widow, Sophia Raffles. It will be shown that Singapore's founding was underpinned by two consecutive but ideologically disparate events. The central event between Raffles' occupation of Singapore and the Anglo-Dutch Treaty was the establishment of the Select Committee on Foreign Trade, conducted at both houses of parliament at Westminster between 1820 and 1823. George Canning and Grant appear to have attempted to reconcile Raffles' design of a Malay Commonwealth with the free trader's desire to trade in Chinese goods, by converging the function of an 'intermediate port' with a location in the Malay Archipelago.
