Singapore History Continued

After a while, the Prince starts to thinkin’ about how he might get a bit more out of the British. He’d gotten a pretty good deal – 50% of the take on the spice business, $5K a year Spanish and the ability to live wherever he wanted on the island – he chose to move into Kampong Glam, which happened to be the Malay neighborhood. In the typical British style of divide and conquer, they’d created planned neighborhoods for Chinese, Indian Malaysian, European and the Financial District.

Contemporary reports say that the Prince was packin’ on the pounds, probably due to rich food and easy living. Anyhow, by now (about 1824), Raffles term had ended and the next guy, John Crawford, was in charge. He didn’t really get along with the Prince or care for him all that much. Word has it that the Prince wasn’t fallin’ all over himself to dote on Crawford, either.

Anyhow, the Prince wanted a raise in his allowance, and Crawford not only didn’t give it to him, he started stalling the payments he was supposed to be getting. To keep up appearances, the Prince went to the moneylenders and borrowed.

Anyone who’s ever gotten on the Credit Card ferris wheel knows how hard it is to get that boil lanced!

Eventually, he was behind on his payments and they were threatening to take him to Court. To get bailed out, Crawford made him sign over Singapore to the British forever. He still got some perks and an allowance, but he should have seen that his days were numbered.

This is the fountain in front of the Palace, which is now the museum.