Career
Light served as a Royal Navy midshipman from 1759 to 1763, but went out to seek his fortune in the colonies. From 1765, he worked as a private country trader.
For about ten years he had his headquarters in Salang, Siam, near Phuket, reviving a failed French trading post. While living there he learned to speak and write several languages, including Malay and Siamese. In 1785, he warned the Thais on Phuket Island of an imminent Burmese attack. Light's warning enabled the islanders to prepare for Phuket's defence and subsequently repel the Burmese invasion.
On behalf of the British East India Company, he leased the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah, where many others had failed by promising military aid to Sultan Abdullah from Kedah. In addition, he was supposedly given a Princess of Kedah as a reward. (Other sources state that the Princess was sent to covet Light's aid on behalf of the Sultan).
The multicultural colony of Penang became extraordinarily successful from its inception and Light served as the Superintendent of the colony until his death.
Read more about this topic: Francis Light
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“I seemed intent on making it as difficult for myself as possible to pursue my “male” career goal. I not only procrastinated endlessly, submitting my medical school application at the very last minute, but continued to crave a conventional female role even as I moved ahead with my “male” pursuits.”
—Margaret S. Mahler (1897–1985)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)