The Similarities of Francis Light (1740–1794), Stamford Raffles (1781–1826), and Frank Swettenham (1850–1946).

All three experienced traumatic childhood due to the lack of birthrights for being born out of wedlock in a patriarchal and conservative society, living in poverty, and the loss of a mother. While they did not complete their schooling, neither received professional training in Oriental Studies, their works regarding the Malays are authoritative in the school of Western Oriental Studies due to their professional achievement and position of being colonial officials in the Malay world. They wrote on the subject matter of the Malays as the Malays were inextricable to their agenda for British Settlement and penetration in the Malay States. They usually mingled with the ruling classes as it aligns with their agenda for British intervention in Malay States of the Malay Peninsula. Their literary works are mainly located in England and some copies are made available in Malaysia. All three were monumental in the creation of a British Settlement which eventually created Malaysia.

On a personal note, the women they had relations with, be it official or out of wedlock, brought scandals to their lives, and Frank Swettenham was wicked to his first wife which caused her insanity. The thread that binds Francis Light, Stamford Raffles, and Frank Swettenham is the lack of opportunities made accessible to them due to familial circumstances, therefore, they took to the East and reinvented themselves and moved up the social ladders through their professional achievement, therefore, they embodied “The East is a Career.. They applied deceit, murdered, and massacred Malays in order to achieve their professional goals and personal legacies.

Though they had dedicated their lives to their employers, they were unappreciated and worst, made social pariah among their alumni for the faults they did during their career in the Malay States and Malaya. Francis Light was only made a Superintendent with a low salary, Raffles was made to pay debts, and Frank Swettenham was prohibited to enter colonial official networks upon his retirement.

All three are tragic heroes. They defied their circumstances, thrived, lived in success and due to hubris or other fatal flaws met with tragedy; Francis Light had an untimely death and his friends thrusted treachery towards his children; Stamford Raffles met personal loss where none of his children survived, including Ella and met with humiliation and debt as the British East India Company forced his to compensate their losses when Raffles was in position and power, he met an untimely death, his body was unlocated though his body was found many years later in a vault; and Frank Swettenham had left no official heir, and had his idea of the Federation of Malaya credited to someone else but was soon exonerated through physical evidence.