For the Dutch, it was signed by Hendrik Fagel and Anton Reinhard Falck, and for the British, George Canning and Charles Williams-Wynn.

[1] The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, designed to solve issues arising from British occupation of Dutch colonial possessions during the Napoleonic Wars, as well as trading rights existing for hundreds of years in the Spice Islands between the two nations, addressed a wide array of issues but did not clearly describe limitations of expansion by either side in maritime Southeast Asia.

The British establishment of Singapore on the Malay Peninsula in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles exacerbated tensions between the two nations, especially as the Dutch claimed that the treaty signed between Raffles and the Sultan of Johor was invalid and that the Sultanate of Johor was under the Dutch sphere of influence.

In 1820, under pressure from British merchants with interests in the Far East, negotiations to clarify the situation in Southeast Asia started.

The Dutch, realising that the growth of Singapore could not be curbed, pressed for an exchange in which they would abandon their claims north of the Strait of Malacca and their Indian colonies in exchange for confirmation of their claims south of the strait, including the British colony of Bencoolen.