The Trading Environment in the Melaka Straits, c. 1800–1830

Abstract

Editor’s Note: The current issue of JMBRAS includes an article by F. Andrew Smith on the life of James Carnegie, a ‘country’ trader in Penang in the early 1800s. As the following documents indicate, private traders operating alongside the East India Company, known as country or free traders, faced many obstacles in addition to the normal vagaries of the market. Besides dealing with changing requirements imposed by Dutch and British administrators competing for dominance in the region, ships dealt with attacks on ships and their crews, navigation in and around the Straits of Melaka, and multiple currencies. Paul Kratoska