MEMOIR OF SIR THOMAS STAMFORD
RAFFLES, KNIGHT, F.R. AND A.S.,
LIEUT.-GOVERNOR OF BENCOOLEN,
&c. &c. &c.

(With a Portrait.)

SIR THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES was born on board the ship Ann, at sea, off the harbour of port Morant, in the island of Jamaica, on the 6th of July, 1781. His father, Benjamin Raffles, was one of the oldest captains in the West India trade, from the port of London. Sir Stamford received his education principally under Dr. Anderson, who presided over a respectable academy at Hammersmith. At an early age he was admitted on the establishment at the East India House, where his talents and his industry obtained for him the esteem and confidence of the then secretary, the late Wm. Ramsay, Esq. through whose interest, in 1805, the directors gave him the handsome and flattering appointment of assistant-secretary to the government in Prince of Wales's Island, together with the rank of junior merchant, and an eventual succession to council. He had not been long in that settlement before he became chief secretary.

[1824.

highest regard and confidence it was afterwards his happiness to enjoy, and in whose death he has had to deplore the loss of a most steady and inestimable friend.

In 1811, Sir Stamford was induced to visit Calcutta, whence he accompanied Lord Minto in the expedition against Java, in the capacity of private secretary to his lordship, and his agent in the Malay states; and in the month of October in that year, he was appointed to the high station of lieutenant-governor of that island, and its various important dependencies. How he discharged the trust reposed in him by this distinguished appointment, is well known; while the mildness and equity of his administration endeared him to the millions, amongst whom he then dispensed the blessings of the British government, to a degree almost unexampled in our colonial history.

During his residence in Java, he lost his first wife, to whom he was united previous to his leaving this country; and his health having materially suffered from the combined influence of domestic affliction, and the severe duties of his station, he was induced to visit England. He arrived at Falmouth in the autumn of 1816, While there, he diligently applied bringing with him the Ráden Rána himself to the study of the Malay, and Dipúra, a Javanese prince, with his other languages of the Eastern Archi- suit; and a more splendid and extenpelago. To these studies he was sive collection of specimens of the incited in no small degree by the late productions, costume, &c. of the lamented Dr. Leyden, with whom he Eastern Archipelago, than had ever formed a friendship the most endear- before been received into a British ing, which was unhappily terminated port. The reception with which he by the death of that eminent scholar, met in England, must have been highwho expired at Batavia in the arms ly gratifying to him. He had the of his friend. Such was the success pleasure to see that his services were with which he cultivated the study of appreciated by the public, while, from thesc languages, that he was appoint-persons of all ranks and classes of ed Malay translator to the govern- society, he received the most flatterment; and Lord Minto, then gover- ing marks.of kind and respectful atnor-general of India, honoured him tention. with especial notice in one of his anniversary discourses to the college of Calcutta. Thus he became known to

that truly enlightened nobleman, whose

No. 61.-VOL. VI.

During his stay in this quarter of the globe, notwithstanding the nume rous engagements by which he was oppressed, he found leisure to accom

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"8. I consider, that the terms in the text employed to describe this miracle, are not, when rightly under-point when it might be expected to go stood, contrary to the well-established down, must have been very observable notions of the true system of the uni- and striking. The enemy must see, verse; and are not spoken, as some feel, and deplore it; as their hope of have contended, ad captum vulgi, to escape must, in such circumstances, the prejudices of the common people, be founded on the speedily entering much less do they favour the Ptole-in of the night, through which alone, maic or any other hypothesis, that they could expect to elude the purplaces the earth in the centre of the suing Israelites. And the Israelites solar system. themselves must behold, with aston

Having laid down these prelimi-ishment and wonder, that the setting naries, some short observations on the words of the text may be sufficient. "Joshua's address is in a poetic form in the original, and makes the two following hemistichs :

might immediately take place. The desire of Joshua was, that the sun might not sink below the horizon but as it appeared now to be over Gibeon, and the moon to be over the valley of Ajalon, he prayed that they might continue in these positions till the battle should be ended; or, in other words, that the day should be miraculously lengthened out.

be well asked, 'How could Joshua | or restraining this influence, so that know that he should not have time the cessation of the earth's motion enough to complete the destruction of his enemies, who were now completely routed?' Already multitudes of them had fallen by the hail-stones and by the sword; and if he had yet half a day before him, it would have been natural enough for him to conclude that he had a sufficiency of time for the purpose, his men having been employed all night in a forced march, and half a day in close fighting; and, "Whether Joshua had a correct indeed, had he not been under an philosophical notion of the true sysespecial inspiration, he could not have tem of the universe, is a subject that requested the miracle at all, knowing, need not come into the present inas he must have done, that his men quiry: but whether he spoke with strict must be nearly exhausted by march- propriety on this occasion, is a matter ing all night and fighting all day. of importance, because he must be But it may be asked, What is the considered as acting under the Divine meaning of n yn bechatsi hasha- influence, in requesting the performmayim, which we translate in the midst ance of such a stupendous miracle: of heaven? If, with Mr. Bate, we and we may safely assert, that no man translate nyn chatsah, to part, divide in his right mind would have thought asunder, then it may refer to the hori- of offering such a petition, had he not zon, which is the apparent division of felt himself under some Divine afflathe heavens into the upper and lower tus. Leaving therefore his philosohemisphere: and thus the whole verse phic knowledge out of the question, has been understood by some emi- he certainly spoke as if he had known nently learned men, who have trans- that the solar influence was the cause lated the whole passage thus: And of the earth's rotation, and therefore, the sun stood still in the (upper) hemi- with the strictest philosophic prosphere of heaven, and hasted not to go priety, he requested, that that infludown, when the day was complete; that ence might be for a time restrained, is, though the day was then complete, that the diurnal motion of the earth the sun being on the horizon, the line might be arrested, through which that to the eye constituted the mid alone, the sun could be kept above heaven; yet it hasted not to go down, the horizon, and day be prolonged. was miraculously sustained in its then His mode of expression evidently conalmost setting position; and this seems siders the sun as the great ruler or masstill more evident from the moon ap-ter in the system; and all the planets, pearing at that time, which it is not reasonable to suppose could be visible, in the glare of light occasioned by a noon-day sun.

"But the main business relative to the standing still of the sun, still remains to be considered.

"I have already assumed, as a thoroughly demonstrated truth, that the sun is in the centre of the system, moving only round his own axis, and the common centre of the gravity of the planetary system, while all the planets revolve round him, Prop. 2 and 3. that his influence is the cause of the diurnal and annual revolutions of the earth; nor can I see what other purpose his revolution round his own axis can possibly answer, Prop. 5.

"I consider, that the word dom, in the text, refers to the withholding

(or at least the earth) moving in their respective orbits at his command. He therefore desires him, (in the name, and by the authority of his Creator) to suspend his mandate with respect to the earth's motion, and that of its satellite, the moon. Had he said, earth, stand thou still-the cessation of whose diurnal motion was the effect of his command, it could not have obeyed him; as it is not even the secondary cause either of its annual motion round the sun, or its diurnal motion round its own axis. Instead of doing so, he speaks to the sun, the cause (under God) of all these motions, as his great archetype did, when, in the storm on the sea of Tiberias, he rebuked the wind first, and then said to the waves, Peace! be still! ETA, Tepwoo, be SILENT! be DUMB! Mark

iv. 39. and the effect of this command deranged, had he bid the earth stand was, a cessation of the agitation in still, which, they grant, would have the sea, because the wind ceased to been the most accurate and philosocommand it, that is, to exert its influ-phical mode of command on this occaence upon the waters.

sion.' But with due deference both to the objectors and defenders, I must assert, that such a form of speech, on such an occasion, would have been utterly unphilosophic; and that the expressions found in the Hebrew text, are such as Sir Isaac Newton himself might have denominated, every thing considered, elegant, correct, and sublime. Nor does it at all appear, that the prejudices of the vulgar were consulted on this occasion; nor is there a word here, when properly understood, that is inconsistent with the

"The terms in this command, are worthy of particular note: Joshua does not say to the sun, Stand still, as if he had conceived him to be running his race round the earth; but be silent, or inactive, that is, as I understand it, restrain thy influence; no longer act upon the earth, to cause it to revolve round its axis; a mode of speech which is certainly consistent with the strictest astronomical knowledge: and the writer of the account, whether Joshua himself, or the author of the Book of Jasher, in relating the conse-purest axiom of the soundest philosoquence of this command, is equally phy; and certainly nothing that imaccurate, using a word widely differ-plies any contradiction. I grant, that ent, when he speaks of the effect, the retention of the solar influence had on the moon: in the first case, the sun was silent, or inactive, dom, in the latter the moon stood still; y âmad. The standing still of the moon, or its continuance above the horizon, would be the natural effect of the cessation of the solar influence, which obliged the earth to discontinue her diurnal rotation, which, of course, would arrest the moon; and thus both it and the sun were kept above the horizon, probably for the space of a whole day. As to the address to the moon, it is not conceived in the same terms as that to the sun, and for the most obvious philosophical reasons: all that is said is simply, and the moon on the vale of Ajalon, which may be thus understood:'Let the sun restrain his influence, or be inactive, as he appears now upon Gibeon, that the moon may continue as she appears now over the vale of Ajalon.' It is worthy of remark, that every word in this poetic address, is apparently selected with the greatest caution and precision.

when the people have to do with astronomical and philosophical matters, then the terms of the science may be accommodated to their apprehensions: it is on this ground that Sir Isaac Newton himself speaks of the rising and of the setting of the sun; though all genuine philosophers know, that these appearances are produced by the rotation of the earth on its own axis, from west to cast. But when matters of this kind are to be transacted between God and his prophets, as in the above case, then subjects relative to philosophy, are conceived in their proper terms, and expressed according to their own nature. At the conclusion of the 13th verse, a different expression is used when it is said, So, the sun stood still, it is not □ dom, but my âmad; when my vaiyaâmod hashemesh, which expression, thus varying from that in the command of Joshua, may be considered as implying, that in order to restrain his influence, which I have assumed to be the cause of the earth's motion, the sun himself became inactive, that is, ceased to re"Persons who are no friends to volve round his own axis; which reDivine revelation, say, that the ac-volution is probably one cause, not count given of this miracle, supposes the earth to be the centre of the system, and the sun moveable; and as this is demonstrably a false philosophy, consequently the history was never dictated by the Spirit of truth.' Others, in answer, say, that the Holy Spirit condescends to accommodate himself to the apprehensions of the vulgar: The Israelites would naturally have imagined that Joshua was

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only of the revolution of the earth, but of all the other planetary bodies in our system, and might have affected all the planets at the time in question: but this neither could, nor did, produce any disorder in nature; and the delay of a few hours in the whole planetary motions, dwindles away into an imperceptible point in the thousands of years of their revolutions. I need scarcely add, that the