GEORGE TOWN, Malaysia — High-rise buildings arrayed like a defensive wall along the eastern coast of Malaysia’s Penang Island make it hard to imagine how this tropical outpost would have appeared to the British naval officer who landed on its shore in 1786.
Francis Light, who secured Penang for the British after negotiating a deal with the local Malay sultan, went on to make the largely uninhabited island Britain’s main trading center in Southeast Asia, alongside nearby Singapore.
