Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles established a British East India Company trading factory in Singapore in 1819. The original letter, of which this is a contemporary clerical copy, was written by Raffles in October 1812 when he was Lieutenant-Governor of Java. Addressed to the Directors of the East India Company in London, this letter mentions Raffles’ support for the botanical survey of Java conducted by Dr Thomas Horsfield, the botanist who he had commissioned to do this work.
