Record Details

Light, Francis (The Light Letters)

AIM25 - Archives in London

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Field Value
 
Title Light, Francis (The Light Letters)
 
Creator Light | Francis | 1740-1794 | Superintendent of Penang
 
Subject Armed forces
Colonial conflicts
Colonial countries
Colonization
Diplomacy
Drugs
Enterprises
Exports/imports
Foreign relations
International relations
International trade
Maritime transport
Military equipment
Military organizations
Narcotic drugs
Naval personnel
Organizations
Pharmacology
Political systems
Slavery
Social structure
State security
Trade
Trade (practice)
Transport
Water transport
Weapons
Equipment
 
Description

Papers, 1780s-1790s, largely of Captain Francis Light, including several hundred Malay letters, primarily letters received by Light and his business partner, Captain James Scott, from rulers and dignitaries of the Malay Sultanates.

The letters cover the history of relations, negotiations and conflicts between Light, the rulers of Kedah and the Governor General in Bengal leading up to and including the settlement of Penang in 1786 and the armed conflict of 1791. There are also letters dealing with business affairs between Light and Malay nobles such as the purchase, shipment and sale of commodities, ammunition, slaves and opium, and the maintenance of good political and economic neighbourly relations; letters from the Sultanate of Selangor; letters from royal merchants at the Malay courts; and letters concerning trade from various rulers and nobles in the Peninsula and Sumatra, especially from Aceh, Asahan and other North-Sumatran states.

In addition, the collection contains several dozen letters and documents from the same period relating to Bencoolen (Benkulen) and the West Sumatran Presidency, which are unrelated to Light.


 
Publisher School of Oriental and African Studies
 
Date 2007-03-09
 
Type text
 
Format text/html
 
Identifier http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=143&inst_id=19
 
Rights

Unrestricted.

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.