‘THIS CLASS OF VAGABONDS AND SHARPERS’

Abstract

In 1819 William Gauder, a British resident of Ceylon, was lost in a shipwreck off the Sumatran coast. Over a decade later his father, J. A. Gauder, received reports of his survival, and made several enquiries with British authorities about his son's status as well as the possibility of his repatriation. William Gauder apparently had been living in a Malay community in southern Sumatra. He was not the first, or last, European to live in a Malay state during this period. By accessing the letters and discussions between English and Dutch personnel, as well as published accounts, this article discusses how Europeans depicted the lives of their compatriots who lived in Malay polities during the ‘long 18th century’.