Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles established a British East India Company trading factory in Singapore in 1819. This letter is part of a collection of letters he wrote to his cousin, the Revd Thomas Raffles, an influential religious leader in Liverpool to whom Raffles was close and with whom he corresponded frequently. In this letter from Bencoolen, Raffles writes on a variety of topics including that of the Christian Mission, the Native School, the founding of the Agricultural Society, and speaks glowingly of the development of Singapore, which he notes “continues to thrive most wonderfully”.
