James Richardson Logan was born in the windswept hills of Berwickshire, where the River Tweed divides nations and heroic legends run deep, yet he devoted his life to Penang and its peoples. Why? This retrospective traces Logan’s progression from his birth in a modest Scottish farmhouse to becoming the most prominent legal mind in the Straits Settlements. But Logan’s journey from the hills of Scotland to the tiger-haunted jungles of colonial Malaya was anything but ordinary. Armed with the idealism of a reformer and the pen of a provocateur, Logan challenged the complacency of empire, pursuing justice both in the courtroom and through the pages of his newspaper, the Pinang Gazette. From defending pirates and sultans in court, to exposing abuse by colonial officials, his colourful career embraced a defiance of unchecked imperial power. Forged in 19th-century Malaya at the crossroads of law, loyalty, and legacy, Logan’s call for justice resonates through time to our present day.