Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The result was, that, after a little hesitation and floundering, he got fairly in earnest, and threw off a discourse which so delighted those who were best acquainted with him, that they stopped round the door to shake hands and congratulate him. He had never preached so well in all his life, they said. This settled the question forever; and from that day forward he began to believe that anybody who can talk in his chair can talk standing up, after he has got over his first impressions, and all the better for having a large auditory, with upturned faces, before him; so that he became at last, and within a few years, one of the finest pulpit orators of the day, and one of the best platform speakers, though not, perhaps, what the multitude consider eloquent; for, at the best, he was only argumentative and earnest and clear and convincing, in his highest manifestations.

Of his career after this, I cannot say anything as I wish, without the risk of saying too much. He had one of the wealthiest and most liberal congregations of New England. He was their idol. He was in every way most agreeably situated, with a large family flowering into usefulness about him, and hosts of friends, enthusiastic and devoted. Nevertheless, believing that, as a servant of God, he had no right to preach smooth things where rough things were needed, and that acknowledging other people's transgressions would not satisfy the law, he came out boldly, with helm and spear, against two of the worst forms of human slavery,--the slavery of the body and the slavery of the soul, the slavery of the wine-cup, and the slavery of bondage to a master. Whether his beloved people would hear or whether they would forbear, being all the more beloved because of their danger, he must preach what he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth. It was like a fire shut up in his bones. He persisted, and they remonstrated, or rather a part of them did so; and the result was a speedy and hopeless alienation, followed by years of strife and bitter controversy at law, and a final separation; though by far the larger part of the church and congregation, if I do not mistake, upheld him to the last, and adhered to him through good report and through evil report,--Deacon Samuel May, a host in himself, being of their number.

During this protracted and sorrowful controversy, he became a phrenologist,--a believer in phrenology,--at any rate, following the lead of Spurzheim; and after many years, a Spiritualist,--in which faith he died,--one of his last, if not the very last, of his appearances before the public being as President of a convention held by the leading Spiritualists of the land at Philadelphia.

He could not be a materialist; and having faith in the evidence of his own senses, and being as truly conscientious a man as ever breathed, and accustomed to the closest reasoning, what was he to do? There were the _facts_. They were not to be controverted; they could not be explained; they could not be reconciled to any hypothesis in physics. If he was given over to delusion, to be buffeted by Satan, whose fault was it? That he was by nature somewhat credulous, and, though patient enough in his investigations, rather too fond of the marvellous, may be acknowledged; but what then? His conclusions might be wrong, his inferences faulty, though honest; but how were they to be counteracted? That he sometimes took too much for granted, I believe, nay, more, _I know_; because I myself have seen him grossly imposed on by a woman he took me to see, whose impersonations were thought most wonderful. But then he was a devout man, a close observer, an admirable logician, accustomed to the "competition of opposite analogies" and to weighing evidence; and if he misunderstood the _facts_, or misinterpreted them, or inferred the supernatural from false premises, why then let us grieve for his delusion, and wait patiently for the phenomena which led him astray to be explained.

He went abroad for a time, while pastor of the Hollis Street Church, and visited the Holy Land, in devout pilgrimage; and though he lost his first wife, the mother of all his children, and a most worthy gentlewoman, but the other day, and married another superior woman after a brief widowhood, his last days have been, I should say, most emphatically his best days; for he has lectured through the length and breadth of the land on Temperance, and, after enduring all sorts of persecution as one of the anti-slavery leaders, he lived to see the whole system against which they had been warring so long, and with so little apparent effect, utterly overthrown throughout the land, and the great God of heaven and earth acknowledged as the God of the black man. Thousands and thousands of miles he travelled, not only after having passed the meridian of his life, but after he had reached the allotted term, when life begins to be a heaviness for most, as a laborer in the cause of truth,--often of unacknowledged truth; and if mistaken, as a theologian, or as a Spiritualist, or as a man,--being what he was,--let us remember that he was never false to his convictions, never a hypocrite nor a deceiver, and that he died with his harness on, having been occupied for the last five years of his life in digesting the treasury decisions, often contradictory, and always inaccessible, for there was no index, until he took them in hand, going back thirty years, I believe, and reducing the whole to a system which need be no longer unintelligible to the Department.

One word more. Among the scores of letters I had from him in the day of his bitterest trials and sorest temptations, there was one which he sent off in the midst of his first great triumph,--with no date now, although I find a mark upon it which leads me to suppose it was written November 16, 1818, and from which I must venture to take a single paragraph.

"My God!" he says,--"my God! I do most devoutly thank Thee. My prayer has reached Thee, and been accepted. My dear friend, join with me in thanking Him in whom I put my trust,--to whom alone I look, or to whom I _have_ looked, for a smile. He has blessed me. I have been heard by man, and have not been forsaken by God. Though I have not done _perfectly_, I have done as well as I could rationally wish, and better than my most sanguine hopes. At Brattle Square _this_ morning, and at the New South (late Mr. Thacher's) _this_ afternoon. Lord! now let thy servant depart in peace; for thou hast lifted the cloud under which he has so long moved, and he may now die in thy light."

Can such a temper as this be misunderstood? Was he not a man fearing God in 1818,--forty-eight years ago?--or, rather, loving God with that perfect love which casteth out all fear?

But we need not stop here. After he had become a Spiritualist, that is, on the 5th of April, 1862, the evening before his seventy-seventh birthday, he wrote a poem of one hundred and sixty lines, entitled "Meditations of a Birthday Eve," a copy of which he sent me on the 10th of November following, upon the express condition that nobody but myself was to see it, until it should be all over with him. It must have been written without labor, as one would breathe a prayer upon a death-bed. The following extracts--I wish we had room for more--will show what were his feelings and what his aspirations at this time.

"Spirit, my spirit, hath each stage
That brought thee up from youth
To thy now venerable age
Seen thee in search of Truth?

"Hast thou in search of Truth been true,--
True to thyself and her,--
And been with many or with few
Her _honest_ worshipper?

* * * * *

"Spirit, thy race is nearly run;
Say, hast thou run it well?
Thy work on earth is almost done;
_How_ done, no _man_ can tell.

"Spirit, toil on! thy house, that stands
Seventy years old and seven,
Will fall; but one 'not made with hands'
Awaiteth thee in heaven.

"WASHINGTON, D.C., 5 April, 1862."

With the foregoing came another poem, "In Commemoration of a Silver Wedding," October 2, 1863, full of tenderness and pleasantry,--the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. J. Pierpont Lord.

And on his eighty-first birthday, called by a strange mistake his eightieth, there was another celebration, yet more solemn and affecting, where the greetings and congratulations of his brother-poets, all over the land, were sent to him and published in the newspapers of the day.

Among his later poems, the "E Pluribus Unum" appears to me most worthy of his reputation, and least like the doings of his early manhood.

And now, though we had little reason to look for the prolongation of such a life;--a continued miracle from the age of thirty or thirty-five, after which he built himself up anew, by living as well in cold water as in hot, and luxuriating in cold baths, and working hard,--harder, perhaps, on the whole, at downright drudgery, than any other man of his age, like Rousseau in copying music, as a relief from writing poetry,--yet when death happens we are all taken by surprise, just as if we thought God had overlooked his aged servant, or made him an exception to the great, inflexible law of our being; or as if a whisper had reached us, saying, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?"

But enough; a volume of such memoranda would be far short of what such a man deserves when he is finally translated. Faithful among the faithless, may we not hope that his grandeur and strength of purpose, and downright, fearless honesty, will have their appropriate reward, both here and hereafter?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] And here I may as well mention a curious incident. When I wrote my poem, I had never seen Niagara; but we agreed to go together on a pilgrimage at our earliest convenience. One thing and another happened, until I had been abroad and returned, without our seeing it together. At last, being about to go to the South of Europe, I made a new arrangement with him; but just as we--my wife and I--were ready to go, he was called away to consecrate some church in the West, and we started on a journey of two thousand miles through portions of our country I had never seen, and was ashamed to go abroad again without seeing. On my way back we stopped in Buffalo, and as I stood in the piazza I saw a little card on one of the pillars saying that the Rev. Mr. Pierpont would preach in the evening somewhere. I found him, and we went _together_ at last, and saw Niagara together, as we had agreed to do forty years before. And that night the heavens rained fire upon us, and the great November star-shooting occurred, and our landlord, being no poet, was unwilling to disturb us, so that we missed the show altogether.

* * * * *

MY GARDEN.

If I could put my woods in song,
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead,
And rank the savage maples grow
From spring's faint flush to autumn red.

My garden is a forest-ledge,
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge in depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nature's lawful web,
They heed not moon or solar tide,--
Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
And every god,--none did refuse;
And be sure at last came Love,
And after Love, the Muse.

Keen ears can catch a syllable,
As if one spake to another
In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
And what the whispering grasses smother.

Æolian harps in the pine
Ring with the song of the Fates;
Infant Bacchus in the vine,--
Far distant yet his chorus waits.

Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the wood-bell's peal and cry?
Write in a book the morning's prime,
Or match with words that tender sky?

Wonderful verse of the gods,
Of one import, of varied tone;
They chant the bliss of their abodes
To man imprisoned in his own.

Ever the words of the gods resound,
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom in this low life's round
Are unsealed that he may hear.

Wandering voices in the air,
And murmurs in the wold,
Speak what I cannot declare,
Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake,
The whirlwind in ripples wrote
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake,
Cannot be carried in book or urn;
Go thy ways now, come later back,
On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast,
Of better men than live to-day;
If who can read them comes at last,
He will spell in the sculpture, "Stay."

* * * * *

BORNEO AND RAJAH BROOKE.

Off the southeastern extremity of Asia, and separated from it by the Chinese Sea, lies a cluster of great islands, comprising that portion of Oceanica commonly called Malaysia. Of these islands Borneo is the most extensive, and, if you call Australia a continent, it is by far the largest island in the world. Situated on the equator, stretching from 7° of north to 4° of south latitude, and from 108° to 119° of east longitude, its extreme length is 800 miles, its breadth 700, and it contains 320,000 square miles,--an area seven times as great as that of the populous State of New York.

But though its size and importance are so great, though it was discovered by the Portuguese as early as 1518, though several European nations have at various times had settlements on its coasts, though it is rich in all the products of a tropical clime, and in base and precious metals, diamonds and stones, and though its climate, contrary to what might have been expected, is in many localities salubrious even to an American or European constitution, yet until recently almost nothing was known by the world of its surface, its products, or its inhabitants.

The causes of this ignorance are obvious. The very shape of Borneo is unfavorable to discovery. A lumpish mass, like Africa and Australia, the ocean has nowhere pierced it with those deep bays and gulfs in which commerce delights to find a shelter and a home. And though it has navigable rivers, their course is through the almost impenetrable verdure of the tropics, and they reach the sea amid unwholesome jungles. The coast, moreover, is in most places marshy and unhealthy, for the distance of twenty or thirty miles inland; while the interior is filled with vast forests and great mountain ranges, almost trackless to any but native feet. Besides, the absence of all just and stable government has reduced society to a state of chaos. And to all this must be added piracy, from time immemorial sweeping the sea and ravaging the land. Under such circumstances, if there were little opportunity for commerce, there was none for scientific investigations; and only by the enterprises of commerce or the researches of science do we know of new and distant countries.

Many races inhabit Borneo; but the Malays and Sea and Land Dyaks greatly preponderate. The Malays, who came from continental Asia, are the conquering and governing race. In their native condition they are indolent, treacherous, and given to piracy. The very name Malay has come to stand for cruelty and revenge. But well governed, they prove to be much like other people, susceptible to kindness, capable of affection, amiable, fond to excess of their children, and courteous to strangers. The Sea Dyaks are piratical tribes, dwelling on the coasts or borders of rivers, and subsisting by rapine and violence. The Land Dyaks are the descendants of the primitive inhabitants. They are a mild, industrious race, and remarkably honest. One hideous custom, that of preserving the heads of their fallen enemies as ghastly tokens of victory, has invested the name of Dyak with a reputation of cruelty which is not deserved. This singular practice, originating, it is said, in a superstitious desire to propitiate the Evil Spirit by bloody offerings, has in process of time become connected with all their ideas of manly prowess. The young girl receives with proud satisfaction from her lover the gift of a gory head, as the noblest proof both of his affection and his heroism. This custom is woven, too, into the early traditions of the race. The Sakarrans tell us that their first mother, who dwells now in heaven near the evening star, asked of her wooer a worthy gift; and that when he presented her a deer she rejected it with contempt; when he offered her a mias, the great orang-outang of Borneo, she turned her back upon it; but when in desperation he went out and slew a man, brought back his head, and threw it at her feet, she smiled upon him, and said that was indeed a gift worthy of her. This legend shows, at any rate, how fixed is this habit, not alone in the passions of the people, but also in their traditional regard. Yet, strange as it may seem, they are an attractive race. A missionary's wife who has known them well declares that they are gentle and kindly, simple as children, disposed to love and reverence all who are wiser and more civilized than themselves. Ida Pfeiffer concludes that the Dyaks pleased her best, not only among the races of Borneo, but among all the races of the earth with which she has come in contact. And a cultivated Englishman, with wealth and social position at command, has been so attracted to them, that he has lavished both his fortune and his best years in the work of their elevation. The social condition of the Dyaks has been sufficiently wretched. Subjected to the Malays, they have been forced to work in the mines without pay, while they were liable at any moment to be robbed of their homes, and even of their wives and children. "We do not live like men," said one of them, with great pathos. "We are like monkeys, hunted from place to place. We have no houses, and we dare not light a fire lest the smoke draw our enemies upon us."

Running along the whole northern coast of Borneo, eight hundred miles, and inland perhaps two hundred, is found Borneo Proper, one of the three great Mohammedan kingdoms into which the island was divided as early as the sixteenth century. This state is governed, or rather misgoverned, by a sultan, and, under him, by rajahs and pangerans,--officials who give to the commands of their nominal superior but a scanty obedience. For two centuries Borneo Proper has been steadily settling into anarchy and barbarism. With a government both feeble and despotic, it was torn by intestine wars, crushed within by oppression and ravaged without by piracy, until commerce and agriculture, the twin pillars of the state, were equally threatened, and not one element of ruin seemed to be wanting. What evidence of decay could be more striking than the simple fact that Bruni, its capital, which in the sixteenth century was crowded with a population of more than two hundred thousand souls, had in 1840 scarcely fourteen thousand inhabitants?

* * * * *

To one corner of this wasting empire came, twenty-five years ago, a young Englishman. Simply a gentleman, he had no governmental alliances to help him, and no advantages of any sort for founding empire, except such as sprang from the possession of a sagacious mind, an undaunted temper, and a heart thoroughly in sympathy with the oppressed. Alone he has built up a flourishing state, introducing commercial activity and the habits of civilized life where only oppression and misery were, and has achieved an enterprise which seems to belong rather to the days of chivalry than to a plodding, utilitarian age,--an enterprise which, in romance and success, but not in carnage, calls to mind the deeds of the great Spanish captains in the New World.

James Brooke, the second and only surviving son of Thomas Brooke, a gentleman who had acquired a fortune in the service of the East India Company, was born in India, April 29, 1803. At an early age he entered the employ of the same company to whose interests his father had given his best days. In 1826, as a cadet, he accompanied the British army to the Burmese war, was dangerously wounded, received a furlough, and came to England. To restore his health and gratify his curiosity he spent the year 1827 in travelling on the Continent. His furlough having nearly expired, he embarked for India, but was wrecked on the voyage, and could not report for duty in proper season. This was one of those apparently fortuitous circumstances which so often change the whole aspect of a man's life. At any rate, it was the turning-point in Mr. Brooke's career. Finding that his misfortune had cost him his position, and that he could not recover it without tedious formalities, he left the service. Uncontrolled master of himself, and endowed with sagacity and courage of no ordinary stamp, he was ready for any undertaking which his adventurous spirit or his love of research might dictate. In fact, it was during this interval of leisure that he embarked for China, and on his passage saw for the first time the Eastern Archipelago. He was painfully interested in the condition of Borneo and Celebes, those great islands, sinking apparently into hopeless decay. His sympathies were awakened by the sufferings of the helpless natives, and his indignation was aroused by the outrages of an unbridled piracy. His feelings can be best gathered from his own language. "These unhappy countries afford a striking proof how the fairest and richest lands under the sun may become degraded by a continuous course of oppression and misrule. Whilst extravagant dreams of the progressive advancement of the human race are entertained, a large tract of the globe has been gradually relapsing into barbarism. Whilst the folly of fashion requires an acquaintance with the deserts of Africa, and a most ardent thirst for a knowledge of the customs of Timbuctoo,--whilst the trumpet tongue of many an orator excites thousands to the rational and charitable object of converting the Jews or of reclaiming the Gypsies,--not a single prospectus is spread abroad, not a single voice is raised in Exeter Hall, to relieve the darkness of this paganism and the horrors of this slave-trade. Under these circumstances I have considered that individual exertions may be usefully applied to rouse the zeal of slumbering philanthropy."

The feelings thus awakened were not of a transient character. His dreams henceforth were to visit these islands, see them for himself, study their natural history, understand their social condition, and ascertain what avenues could be opened for trade, and what steps taken to redeem the oppressed native races.

* * * * *

In 1835 the death of his father, leaving him master of an independent fortune, enabled him to realize his dreams. He was a member of the Royal Yacht Club, as well as owner and commander of a yacht,--a position which admitted him in foreign ports to all the privileges of an English naval officer. In this little vessel he resolved to undertake an adventurous voyage of discovery. He approached his enterprise with a wary forethought. "I was convinced," he says, "that it was necessary to form men to my purpose, and by a line of steady and kind conduct to raise up a personal regard for myself and an attachment to the vessel." He cruised three years in the Mediterranean, carefully selecting and training his crew. He studied thoroughly the whole subject of the Eastern Archipelago, and acquainted himself as perfectly as possible with the minutiæ of seamanship and with every useful art. And when his preparations were all complete, on the 16th of December, 1838, he set sail for Singapore, in the yacht Royalist, a vessel of one hundred and forty-two tons, manned by twenty men and officers, with an armament of six six-pounders and a full supply of small arms of all sorts. Such were the mighty resources wherewith he began an enterprise which has ended in raising him to the government of a petty kingdom, and to almost sovereign influence over the whole empire of Borneo Proper.

The reader has already had glimpses of the feelings which prompted this expedition. In a communication to the "Geographical Register" he more fully unfolds his views; and from this and from his familiar letters it is not difficult to gain a clear idea of the character and motives of the man. That his ardent mind had been fired by a study of the career of his great predecessor, Stamford Raffles, is evident. That he was himself one of those energetic, restless natures, to which idleness or mere routine-work is the severest of penalties, is equally evident. He had, moreover, a large share of that kind of enthusiasm which the cool, sagacious men of this world call romance, and which delights to fasten on objects seemingly impossible. He was like the old knights, rejoicing most when the field of their devoir was distant and dangerous. Yet not altogether like them. He was rather a man of the twelfth century, disciplined and invigorated by the hard common-sense and sharp utilitarianism of the nineteenth century. And we must not forget that he honestly wished to benefit the native races. Every page, nay, almost every line, in his journals and letters, bears witness to his profound compassion for the despised and downtrodden Dyaks. Aside from this, when we remember that he was a genuine Englishman, proud of his native land and thoughtful always of her aggrandizement, we need be at no loss to understand his motives. He went forth to gratify a love of adventure, "to see something of the world and come back again," to extend a little the realms of scientific knowledge, to suggest, perhaps, some plans for the improvement of native character, and last, but not least, to learn whether there might not be opened new avenues for the extension of British trade and British power.

That the methods by which these objects were to be attained were not very well defined even to his own mind is clear. He himself said, "I cast myself upon the waters, like Southey's little book; but whether the world will know me after many days, is a question I cannot answer." And some years after, alluding to a charge of inconsistency, he said, "I did not embrace my position _at once_; and indeed the position itself altered very rapidly; and I am free to confess before the world that my views of duty and responsibility were not so high at first as they have since been." Without doubt his direct and primary purpose was investigation. He took with him men of some scientific knowledge, himself being no mean observer; and he proposed to prosecute, wherever opportunity occurred, researches into the geography, natural history, and commercial resources of these islands. If he had ulterior ends, as yet they existed in his mind as fascinating dreams, rather than well-defined plans.

* * * * *

After a tedious voyage of nearly six months, the Royalist reached Singapore, June 1, 1839. While Mr. Brooke was engaged in refitting his yacht, and anxiously revolving in his mind how he should obtain permission to penetrate into the neighboring kingdom of Borneo, he learned that Muda Hassim, uncle of the Sultan, and Rajah of Sarawak, the northwestern province of Borneo, had displayed great humanity towards a crew of shipwrecked Englishmen. On receiving this information he started at once for Sarawak, hoping to get some hold upon the Rajah, and by such help to pursue his researches. But the time of his visit was most unfortunate. The whole province was in a state of open rebellion; so that, while he was received courteously, and permitted to make some local surveys, nothing of importance could be accomplished. Baffled and wearied by delay, he sailed back to Singapore, and from thence to Celebes, where he remained several months, engaged in extensive explorations, and in collecting specimens to illustrate the natural history of that island.

Mr. Brooke returned from Celebes worn out and sick, and was obliged to remain at Singapore several months to recruit his strength. In August, 1840, he made a second visit to Sarawak, intending to tarry there a few days, and then proceed homeward by the way of Manilla and China. "I have done fully as much as I promised the public," he writes. He found things in much the same state as when he left. No progress had been made in the suppression of the rebellion. Few lives indeed had been lost, but the most bloody war could hardly have produced worse results. The country was filled with combatants. Every straggler was cut off. Violence and rapine were the law. Trade and agriculture languished. A rich province was fast relapsing into a wilderness; and all its people were beginning to suffer alike for shelter and sustenance. As our hero was about to set sail, the Rajah opened his whole heart to him. His prospects were anything but flattering. He found himself unequal to the reduction of the rebels. He was surrounded by traitors. At the court of the Sultan, a hostile cabal, taking advantage of his ill-fortune, threatened his power and his life. In this strait, he besought his visitor to remain and give him aid, promising in event of success to confer upon him the government of the province. After a few days' reflection, Mr. Brooke, believing, as he declares, that the cause of the Sultan was just, believing also that what the whole people needed most was peace, and that peace would place him in a position to render them the greatest service, acceded to this request, without, however, be it observed, binding Muda Hassim to any precise stipulations concerning the government.

Many pages of his journal are devoted to an account of this war; and a most curious story it is of cowardice, bravado, and inefficiency. It was advance and retreat, boastful challenge and as boastful reply, marching and countermarching, day after day, and month after month. "Like the heroes of old, the adverse parties spoke to each other: 'We are coming, we are coming; lay aside your muskets and fight us with your swords'; and so the heroes ceased not to talk, but always forgot to fight";--the sum of all their achievements being to lay waste the country, to interrupt honest industry, and to put in peril the lives of the unoffending. Mr. Brooke soon tired of this farce. Gathering a motley force, consisting of Malays, Dyaks, Chinese, and his own crew, he prepared for an assault. Then, planting his cannon where they commanded the stronghold of the enemy, with a few well-directed volleys he brought its walls tumbling about their ears. The insurgents, driven to the open country, and altogether amazed by this specimen of Saxon energy, surrendered at discretion. At one blow a desolating war was ended.

* * * * *

Peace being restored, Mr. Brooke did not insist on the literal fulfilment of the terms which Muda Hassim had in his extremity been so ready to proffer. He chose to occupy a position of influence, rather than one of outward authority. A contract was entered into by which he became Resident of Sarawak. The conditions of the agreement were, that the Rajah on his part should repress piracy, protect legitimate commerce, and as far as possible remove from the Dyaks unjust burdens; while his ally, in return for these concessions, should open trade, sending a vessel to and fro between Singapore and Sarawak, exchanging foreign luxuries for native products, and more especially for antimony, of which article the Rajah had the monopoly. In fulfilment of his part of the treaty, Mr. Brooke proceeded to Singapore, purchased a schooner, loaded her with an assorted cargo, returned to Sarawak, and at the earnest request of Muda Hassim landed and distributed his goods.

But auspicious as was the commencement of this alliance, soon grave causes of complaint arose. On every point the deceitful Malay came short of his agreement. Having obtained valuable property, he showed no alacrity in paying for it; weeks and months passed without bringing him apparently any nearer to a pecuniary settlement. So far from repressing piracy, he encouraged it; and a fleet of one hundred and twenty prahus, with his tacit consent, actually put to sea. When a crew of English seamen were enslaved and carried to Bruni, under the most frivolous pretexts he refused to intercede with the Sultan for these unfortunate men. And so this strange friendship cooled. It was no slight proof either of his courage or his humanity to despatch at this very time, as Mr. Brooke did, his yacht to Bruni, to attempt something in behalf of his enslaved countrymen, and to remain himself with only three men at Sarawak. The yacht came back, however, having effected nothing.

By this time the patience of the creditor was exhausted. Despoiled of his goods, finding that, despite his remonstrances, the Dyaks were cruelly oppressed, and that piracy was encouraged, he resolved to try the effect of threats. He repaired on board his yacht, loaded her guns with grape and canister, and brought her broadside to bear upon the Rajah's palace. Then taking a small, but well-armed guard, he sought an interview with Muda Hassim. The terror of that functionary was extreme. The native tribes openly sided with their English friend. The Chinese residents remained obstinately neutral. The Malays, between cowardice and treachery, afforded him no efficient support. To crown all, his resolute and incensed ally had only to wave his hand to bring down upon him swift destruction. "After this demonstration, things went cheerily to a conclusion." Muda Hassim, finding that his creditor was inflexible, and being unable or unwilling to pay for the goods which he had fraudulently obtained, offered in payment of all debts to surrender the government. The offer was accepted, the agreement drawn up, signed, sealed, guns fired and flags waved, and on September 24, 1841, Mr. Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak. In August of the following year the Sultan solemnly confirmed the agreement.

The territory thus strangely passing into the hands of a private English gentleman was a tract of country bordering upon the sea sixty miles, and extending inland from seventy to eighty miles. Situated at the northeastern extremity of Borneo, pierced by two small, but navigable rivers, its position is most favorable for commerce. Its soil is deep and rich, yielding under any proper culture large crops of all tropical products. Its forests are filled with trees fit for shipbuilding, and abound in that variety from which is obtained the gutta percha of commerce. The hills are rich in iron and tin of the best quality. The mountain streams wash down gold. In the beds of smaller rivers are found diamonds, in such profusion that most of the Malays wear them set in rings and other ornaments. From this single province comes nearly the whole supply of antimony in the world. "I do not believe," says a resident, "that in the same given space there can be found so great mineral and vegetable wealth in any land in the whole world."

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With what sentiments the new Rajah entered upon his duties can be best understood by a perusal of his familiar letters. He writes to his mother: "Do not start when I say that I am going to settle in Borneo, that I am about to endeavor to plant there a mixed colony amid a wild but not unvirtuous race, and to become the pioneer of European knowledge and improvement. The diffusion of civilization, commerce, and religion through so vast an island as Borneo, I call a grand object,--so grand that self is quite lost when I consider it; and even failure would be much better than the non-attempt." "A few days ago I was up a high mountain and looked over the country. It is a prospect which I have rarely seen equalled; and sitting there, lazily smoking a cigar, I called into existence the coffee plantations, the sugar plantations, the nutmeg plantations, and pretty white villages and tiny steeples, and dreamed that I heard the buzz of life and the clang of industry amid the jungles, and that the China Colins whistled as they went, for want of thought, as they homeward bent."

The first duty which claimed attention was the relief of the native Dyaks. A shrewd Dyak once defined the Malay government as "a plantain in the mouth and a thorn in the back." A plantain giving to their poor subjects a little to keep life in them; a thorn stripping them to the skin and piercing them to the bone. The description is pithy, and it is true. The exactions of the Malay chiefs were almost beyond belief. Seizing and monopolizing some article of prime necessity,--salt perhaps,--they would force the natives to buy at the rate of fifty dollars' worth of rice for a teacup of salt; until the wretched cultivator, who had raised a plentiful crop, was brought to the verge of starvation. They reserved to themselves the right of purchasing the articles which the Dyaks had to sell, and then affixed to those articles an arbitrary price, perhaps less than a five-hundredth of their real value. They would send a bar of iron two or three feet long, and having an intrinsic worth of a few cents, to the head mart of a tribe, demanding that his village should give for it a sum equal to five, ten, or twenty dollars. Another was sent in the same way, and another, and another, until the rapacity of the chiefs was satisfied, or the wretched natives had no more to give. Often, when the latter had been robbed of everything, the Malays would seize and sell their wives and children. It is recorded of one tribe, that there was not so much as one woman or child to be found in it. All had been swept off by these remorseless slave-hunters. Nor did their wrongs end here. If a Dyak killed a Malay "under any circumstances of aggression," he was put to death, often with every possible addition of torture. If he accidentally injured one of the ruling caste, he was fortunate to escape with the loss of half or two thirds of his little savings. On the other hand, a Malay might kill as many Dyaks as he pleased, and if perchance justice were a little sterner than usual, he might be fined a few cents or a few dollars. Volumes are contained in this one statement, that in the ten years from 1830 to 1840, the Dyaks in the province of Sarawak dwindled from 14,000 to 6,000 souls.

A blow was immediately struck at the root of this black oppression. As soon as the new government was fairly established, a few simple enactments were published. They declared that every man, Dyak as well as Malay, should enjoy unmolested all the gains of his toil; that all exactions of every name and nature should cease, and that only a small tax, evenly distributed, should be levied for the support of government; that all roads and rivers should be free to all; that all molestation of the Dyaks should be punished with severity. The proclamation which contains these laws concludes with exhorting all persons who are disposed to disturb the public peace to take flight speedily to some other country, where they can break with impunity the laws of God and man. These enactments were firmly executed, without fear and without partiality. Wonderful were the results! Internal violence ceased. The confidence of the natives was awakened. Industry and enterprise sprang up on every hand as by magic. Sarawak became a city of refuge. Sometimes as many as fifty fled thither in a day. In 1844, in the short space of two months, five hundred families took shelter in the province. In 1850, three thousand Chinese fled from Sambas to Sarawak. The Dyaks returned the good-will of their Rajah with love and reverence. During one of his tours in the interior, delegations from tribes numbering six thousand souls came to seek his protection. "We have heard," said they, in simple but touching language, "that a son of Europe has arrived, who is a friend of the Dyaks." When he visited the native hamlets, the women would throw themselves on the ground and clasp his feet, and the whole tribe would spend the night in joyful feasting and merriment. It is soberly affirmed by a credible witness, that on one occasion messengers came fifteen days' journey from a distant province to see if there were such a phenomenon as Dyaks living in comfort.

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Mr. Brooke soon found that all his efforts for internal reform must be in a comparative sense futile so long as piracy, that curse of Borneo, was permitted to ravage unchecked. "It is in a Malay's nature," says the Dutch proverb, "to rove on the seas in his prahu, as it is in that of the Arab to wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." No person who has not investigated the subject can appreciate how wide-spread and deep-seated this plague of piracy is. The mere statistics are appalling. It was estimated, in 1840, that one hundred thousand men made freebooting their trade. One single chief had under control seven hundred prahus. Whole tribes, whole groups of islands, almost whole races, despising even the semblance of honest industry, depended upon rapine for a livelihood. "It is difficult to catch fish, but it is easy to catch Borneans," said the Soloo pirates scornfully; and, acting upon that principle, they fitted out their fleets and planned their voyages with all the method of honest tradesmen.

This piracy was divided into two branches,--coastwise piracy and piracy on the broad seas. The Sea Dyaks built boats called bangkongs, sixty to a hundred feet long, narrow and sharp, propelled by thirty to fifty oars, and so swift that nothing but a steamer could overtake them. These freebooters were the terror of all honest laborers and tradesmen. Skulking along the coast, pushing up rivers and creeks, landing anywhere and every where without warning, they mercilessly destroyed the native villages and swept the inhabitants into captivity. Or else, impelling with the force of fifty men their snaky craft, which were swift as race-boats and noiseless as beasts of prey, they would surprise at dead of night some defenceless merchantman, overwhelm their victims with showers of spears, and with morning light a plundered boat, a few dead bodies, were the silent witnesses of their ferocity. On the other hand, the Illanum and Balanini tribes, infesting the islands to the northeast of Borneo, undertook far grander enterprises. Putting to sea, prepared for a long voyage, in fleets of two or three hundred prahus, propelled by wind and oars, armed with brass cannon, and manned by ten thousand bold buccaneers, they swept through the whole length of the Chinese Sea, and, turning the southernmost point of Borneo, penetrated the straits and sounds between Java and Celebes, never stopping in their ruthless course until they came face to face with the sturdy pirates of New Guinea, and returned, after a voyage of ten thousand miles and an absence of two years, laden with spoils and captives. How hapless was the fate of the poor Dyak! If he stayed at home, cultivating his fields, his Malay lord fleeced him to the skin. If, thinking to engage in gainful traffic, he hugged the shore with his little bark, the river-pirate snatched him up. If he stood out upon the broad waters, he could scarcely hope to escape the Northern hordes who swarmed in every sea.

Mr. Brooke's most terrible assailants were the Sakarran and Sarebus pirates, two tribes of freebooters whose seats of power were on the Sarebus and Batang Lupar rivers, two streams fifty or sixty miles east of Sarawak. These tribes were encouraged and secretly helped by his own Malay chiefs, and insolently defied his power, continuing their depredations, capturing every vessel which ventured out, and ravaging all the adjacent coasts. The strength of these confederacies was so great, that it was no unusual thing for them to muster a hundred war-boats; and they had built, on the banks of the rivers which they infested, strong forts at every point which commanded the channel. That the new Rajah was not able with his slender resources to curb these sea-robbers is not surprising. The only wonder is, that he was able to protect his own capital from the assaults which they often threatened but never dared to attempt.

But efficient aid was at hand. In the summer of 1843 the British ship Dido anchored off the entrance of Sarawak River. She was commissioned to suppress piracy in and about the Chinese Sea. Her commander readily entered into the views of the English Rajah. A boat expedition against the strongholds of the Sarebus pirates was projected. Mr. Brooke assisted with seven hundred Dyaks. A curious incident occurred, showing how clearly the natives appreciated their dependence on their English friend. When he asked their chiefs if they would aid him, they besought him not to risk his life in so desperate an enterprise. But when he assured them that his purpose was fixed, that he should go, alone if necessary, they replied: "What is the use of our remaining behind? You die, we die; you live, we live. We will go too." The expedition was perfectly successful. Three fortified villages were stormed, many guns spiked, many boats destroyed, and their defenders driven to the jungles. This chastisement not sufficing, in the following year another expedition from the same vessel attacked the Sakarran pirates and inflicted upon them a punishment even more severe than that which had fallen to the lot of their Sarebus brethren. Six forts, one mounting fifty-six guns, scores of war-boats, and more than a thousand huts, were burned. These lessons, though sharp, did not permanently subdue.

The blow which broke the power of these confederacies was inflicted in 1849. News came to Sarawak that the pirates had put to sea, marking their course by fearful atrocities. At once Mr. Brooke applied to the English Admiral for assistance, and the steamer Nemesis was despatched to the scene of action. The Rajah joined her with eighteen war-boats, to which were afterwards added eleven hundred Dyaks, in their bangkongs. On the 31st of July, at night, they encountered the great war-fleet of the Sarebus and Sakarran pirates, numbering one hundred and fifty bangkongs, returning home laden with plunder. The pirates found the entrances of the river occupied by their enemies,--the English, Malay, and Dyak forces being placed in three detachments, while the Nemesis was fully prepared to assist whenever the attack should begin. "Then there was a dead silence, broken only by three strokes of a gong, which called the pirates to a council of war. A few minutes afterwards a fearful yell gave notice of their advance, and the fleet approached in two divisions. In the dead of the night there ensued a terrible scene. The pirates fought bravely, but they could not withstand the superior forces of their enemy. Their boats were upset by the paddles of the steamer. They were hemmed in on every side, and five hundred men were killed sword in hand, while twenty-five hundred escaped to the jungles, many of them to perish. The morning light showed a sad spectacle of ruin and defeat. Upwards of eighty prahus and bangkongs were captured, and many more destroyed." The English officers would have gladly saved life; but the pirates would take no quarter, and the prisoners were few. It was a striking fact, that one of the war-boats under Mr. Brooke was manned by some thirty Malays, every one of whom had lost during the year a near relative, killed by these same pirates. The confederacy has never risen from this defeat, and for years the tribes composing it have returned to the labors of peaceful life. Writing twelve months afterwards to a friend, Rajah Brooke says: "Pray keep the 31st of July apart for a special bumper, for during the last year not a single innocent life has been taken by these pirates, nor a single prahu fallen into their hands." Many a victory, famous in story, has accomplished less.

The next year a fleet of sixty-four prahus, manned by northern pirates, and carrying 1224 guns, was destroyed by British gunboats in the Gulf of Tonquin. This was followed by an attack of the Spaniards upon the haunts of the Soloo pirates. A lull ensued. For three or four years almost nothing was heard of freebooting; but it was a deceitful calm, not a final cessation of the storm. The freebooting spirit was not taken out of the blood of the Malay. Now piracy is said to be on the increase again. Only three years since six Balanini pirates had the audacity to sail into Sarawak Bay and commence depredations along its coasts. But not one returned to tell the tale. The whole six were captured or destroyed, and their crews killed or taken prisoners. The only permanent remedy for the evil is just, settled, and efficient government, such as has been established at Sarawak, destroying not simply the fleets, but breaking up the piratical haunts, and with firm hand forcing their people back into the habits and pursuits of civilized life.

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Being delivered for a time at least from these perils, the new Rajah was at liberty to devote himself to the welfare of his subjects. It is not possible, in a brief notice, even to hint at all the events and efforts of the next fifteen years of his government,--to say how he repressed the cupidity and lawlessness of the Malay chiefs; how he encouraged and protected the poor Dyaks; how he opened new channels for trade; how, from year to year, he resisted the fierce pirates, who, coming from the neighboring islands with strong fleets, sought to sweep the adjacent seas. Of course the prime need was to restore confidence, and to assure to all honest workers, of every race, the gains of their industry. The first question, indeed, of the Chinese emigrant was, "Will you protect us, or will our plantations, so soon as they are worth anything, be stripped by your chiefs?" It has been beautiful to behold order coming out of chaos, peace out of violence, whole districts redeemed from anarchy, simply by giving efficient support to the orderly part of the population. Another object of not less importance was to create in this people something of the feeling of nationality, and to make them comprehend that they were citizens, with the duties of citizens. It certainly was no easy task to awaken much of the sentiment of lofty patriotism in the minds of those whose only common memories were of lawless misrule and oppression. Every possible effort has been made in this direction. The struggle has been, not to plant an English colony, but to create a Bornean state. The laws are not English, nor built upon English precedents. They are simply the old Bornean statutes, made conformable to the principles of equity, and administered with just regard to the customs and traditions of the people. The offices of government are filled to the least possible degree with foreigners; while native chiefs and even reclaimed pirates are associated with them, and thus habituated to all the forms of a civilized state. Mr. Brooke, with a rare courage and wisdom, has always trusted for his safety to the good-will of his native subjects. He has never been sustained by mercenary bands. At a time when piratical violence was most threatening, when disorders were yet rife in his own state, and when his subjects but poorly appreciated his benevolent purposes towards them, his whole English force was twenty-four men. It is pleasant to add, that this confidence was not misplaced. A younger generation is now springing up, with larger views of life, and with a better appreciation of the workings and value of equitable government. To sum up all in a brief sentence, it may be said with truth that the administration has been marked by rare sagacity, firmness, and comprehensiveness of view, and that it has been crowned with success.