Before Raffles, before Rajah Brooke, there was Francis Light, the 18th-century trailblazer in the Malay Archipelago.
The 18th-century Straits of Malacca is in crisis, beleaguered by the Dutch, the Bugis, and the clash between Siam and Burma. Enter Francis Light, devious manipulator of the status quo, joined by a cast of real historical figures from the courts of Siam and Kedah and from the East India Company, including Sultan Muhammed Jiwa, King Tak Sin, Warren Hastings and Martinha Rozells, a young Eurasian woman of noble birth.
From humble origins in Suffolk, England, Light struggles against the social prejudices of his day. His subsequent adventures as a naval officer and country ship captain take him from India to Sumatra, the Straits of Malacca to Siam, through shipwreck, sea battles, pirate raids and tropical disease. But Light’s most difficult challenge is his ultimate dream: to establish a British port in the Indies on behalf of the East India Company.
Dragon, the first volume of Penang Chronicles, charts Francis Light’s colourful adventures in the decades before the settlement of Penang island, the Honourable Company’s first possession on the Malay Peninsula.
Table of Contents:
Glossary IX
Place names and Peoples of the Archipelago XII
List of Characters XIV
India and the Malay Peninsula (map) XVI
Prologue 1
PART ONE The Boy from Suffolk (1740-1755)
1. Dog Days 19
2. Occam’s Razor 34
3. A Wider Horizon 52
4. The Orlop 68
5. All at Sea 86
6. The Little Admiral 102
7. Scylla and Charybdis 118
PART TWO The English Captain (1763-1769)
8. The Navy List 131
9. Self-Preservation 147
10. East Indiaman 162
11. Fort St George 178
12. The Foundling 198
13. Patola Cloth 216
14. The Pearl Tank 234
15. A Seat at the Table 254
PART THREE The Nyonya Lady (1770-72)
16. Burning One’s Boats 277
17. The Cynosure of the Indies 292
18. One More Bite of the Apple 305
19. The Delegation 324
20. Of Opium and Elephants 344
21. Retribution 366
22. Dewa Raja 380
Terima Kasih 392
Pearl (Penang Chronicles, Vol. 2) 393
Emporium (Penang Chronicles, Vol. 3) 394
