On his way to China in 1830, he saw the islands of the Asiatic Archipelago, still generally unknown to Europeans. He returned to England and made an abortive trading journey to China in the Findlay before his father died in 1835. Inspired by the adventure stories regarding the success of the East India Company (EIC) where his father had been serving especially from the efforts of Stamford Raffles to expanding the company influence in the Asiatic Archipelago, he purchased a schooner named "Royalist" using the £30,000 left to him by his father. He recruited a crew for the schooner, training in the Mediterranean Sea in late 1836, before beginning their sail to the Far East on 27 October 1838. By July 1839, he reached Singapore and came across some British sailors who had been shipwrecked and helped by Pengiran Raja Muda Hashim, the uncle of Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II of Brunei.