While establishing the British trading settlement on Singapore in 1819, Raffles was concurrently Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen in Sumatra. When he left Bencoolen in 1824, he chartered an East Indiaman, the Fame, to bring his family, possessions and collections back to England. The ship caught fire and sank on 2 February 1824. This book contains an account of the destruction of the Fame from the perspective of a certain Dr Taylor, who observed the fire from the Sumatran shore at Bencoolen. This should be Dr Robert Tytler, a friend of Raffles at Bencoolen.
