W. G. Miller – författare

An in-depth study of the British traders who extended British commercial activity beyond the area controlled by the East India Company.This book provides an in-depth analysis of the British private traders who engaged in the intra-Asian trade, known to contemporaries as the "country trade", between 1770 and 1820, providing much detail on who the traders were, howthey conducted their operations, and how they interacted with indigenous societies in a complex and very volatile region. It examines their relations with East India Company, and their moves beyond the Company's orbit to open upindependently new spheres of British commercial, political, and imperial influence. It discusses their social and political interaction with Malays, their good understanding of local societies, their use of the Malay language, their adoption of local practices and procedures, and their gathering of many forms of useful knowledge, all of which underpinned the growth in commercial activity and made the traders indispensable to East India Company officials. It explores their often fractious rivalry with the Dutch, and analyses the decline of the country trade following the establishment of Singapore in 1819. Throughout, the book provides many case studies of individual traders. W.G. Miller was Southeast Asian Studies Librarian at the Australian National University from 1974 to 1997 and a Visiting Fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University from 2004 to 2018.

An analysis of the misadventures which befell British, Danish and Portuguese merchant mariners in Southeast Asia between 1790 and 1820, a time when British trade and imperialism were expanding.This study describes and analyses the misadventures which befell British, Danish and Portuguese 'country traders', that is, merchant mariners who operated independently of but with the approval of the English East India Company, in Southeast Asia between 1790 and 1820, a time when British trade and imperialism were expanding. It is based on hitherto un-utilised first-hand accounts by captains and crew members as given to authorities at the major port of Malacca. These accounts, required by insurance companies, were a statement of the events which had occurred and a declaration by the declarant of non-culpability. The misadventures ranged from typhoons, groundings and piracy to fire, mutiny and collisions with other vessels. The work places the misadventures in the context of the contemporary knowledge of navigation of the area's seas, current awareness of the local climatic conditions, the local indigenous societies and the contemporary European rivalry between the imperial powers. The analysis of the reporting is seen against the background of local administrative arrangements in Dutch-ruled Malacca, whereby the British, in control from 1795-1818, nevertheless maintained the continuity of Dutch procedures and Dutch personnel. Overall, the book provides rich information about everyday life in the eastern seas in the period.