On August 15, the Royalist cast anchor off the capital, and Mr. Brooke had an interview with the Rajah Muda, presented the letters and gifts, and was very graciously received. He was allowed to make excursions to Lundu, Samarahan, and Sadong, large rivers hitherto unknown to Europeans, and he added some seventy miles to his survey of the coast; but as the Malays and most of the Dayak tribes were in insurrection in the interior, travelling there was unsafe.
The Rajah Muda Hasim, the Bandahara of Bruni and the heir-presumptive to the throne, was a plain, middle-aged man, with gracious and courtly manners, amiable and well disposed, but weak and indolent. He was placed in a difficult position, which he had not the energy or the ability to fill. The Sultan of Bruni had confided the district of Sarawak some years previously to the Pangiran Makota as governor, a man utterly unprincipled, grasping, selfish, cruel, and cowardly, but "the most mild, the most gentlemanly rascal you can conceive";[84] and by his exactions and by forced labour at the antimony mines, he had driven the Sarawak Malays, as well as the Land-Dayaks, into open revolt. They proclaimed their independence of Bruni, and asserted that submission to the Sultan had been voluntary on their part, and on stipulated conditions that had not been carried out. For three years they had carried on their struggle against the Bruni tyrants, but, though far from being reduced, it became evident to them that unaided they could not attain their freedom. Surrender meant death to the chiefs and abject slavery to the people, and to their womankind something far worse than either, so in their extremity they appealed to the Dutch. A year before Mr. Brooke's arrival they had invited the Dutch to plant the Netherlands flag in their camp, and afterwards had sent an emissary to Batavia to beg the assistance of the Governor-General, but open assistance was refused, though the Sultan of Sambas appears to have constantly supplied the rebels with ammunition and provisions. As Mr. Brooke had warned the Pangiran Makota, who had reason to fear Dutch aggression, the danger was not an open violation of their independence, but their coming on friendly terms—they might make war after having first gained a footing, not before. The Dutch had made great efforts to establish trade with Sarawak, in other words, to monopolise it, and through their vassal, the Sultan of Sambas, had offered assistance to open the antimony mines.
The Sultan of Bruni had sent his uncle, the Rajah Muda Hasim, to reduce the rebels, but without withdrawing Makota and checking his abuse of authority. A desultory war had been carried on without success under the direction of Makota, who was too cowardly himself to lead his Malay and Dayak levies into action, to storm the stockades of the insurgents, and to pursue them to their strongholds. The consequence was that anarchy prevailed, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital.
There was something in the frank eye, in the cheery self-confidence of Brooke that captivated the timid little Rajah Muda, who was not only unable to cope with the Malays in revolt, but was afraid of his neighbours, the Dutch, lest they should make the disturbances an excuse for intervention and annexation, and he hoped in his extremity to obtain some help from the British.
"Which is the cat and which is the mouse?" he asked in reference to the rival powers. "Britain is unquestionably the mouser," replied Brooke. But he did not add that the mouser was so gorged and lazy as only occasionally to stretch forth a paw.
Mr. Brooke bade his friends good-bye on September 20, after having received a pressing invitation from the Rajah Muda to revisit him, and he begged Brooke not to forget him. Leaving the Royalist at Muaratebas, Brooke visited the Sadong river, where he made the acquaintance of Sherip Sahap,[85] a powerful half-bred Arab chief and ruler of that river, who in later days was to give Brooke so much trouble. He returned to the Royalist on the 27th, and intended to sail the next morning, but was delayed by a startling incident that gave him his first experience of the piratical habits of the Saribas Dayaks. The boat of Penglima Rajah (the Rajah's captain), who was to pilot the Royalist over the bar, and which was lying inshore of the yacht, was attacked in the middle of the night, but the report of a gun and the display of a blue light from the yacht caused the Dayaks to decamp hurriedly, though not before they had seriously wounded the Penglima and three of his crew. Mr. Brooke waited until the wounded were sufficiently recovered to be sent to Kuching, and, after he had paid a flying visit to that place at the urgent request of the Rajah, sailed for Singapore on October 3.
The history of his late cruise, to quote Mr. Brooke, had agitated the society in Singapore, and whilst the merchants presented him with an address of thanks, the Governor became cooler towards him. The former foresaw an access of trade, the latter was nervous of political embarrassments.
He would fain have me lay aside all politics, but whilst I see such treachery and baseness on one part (the Dutch), and such weakness, imbecility, and indifference on the other (the English), I will continue to upraise my voice at fitting seasons. I will not leave my native friends to be deceived and betrayed by either white nation, and (what the governor does not like) I will speak bold truths to native ears.
The Dutch trading regulations weighed on this island as they did on all others within their influence. Sir Stamford Raffles, in his History of Java, 1830, tells us that by an edict of 1767, trading in opium, pepper, and all spices was prohibited in the Archipelago to all persons under pain of death, and other severe penalties were imposed upon those trading in other commodities. The quantity of gunpowder and shot that might be carried by any vessel was restricted, and the punishment for carrying more than was permitted was the confiscation of the vessel and corporal punishment. Vessels were not allowed to sail from any part of the Java coast where there was not a Company's Resident. Those from Banka and Beliton could only trade to Palembang (Sumatra). Navigation from Celebes and Sumbawa was prohibited under pain of confiscation of vessel and cargo. The China junks were permitted to trade at Batavia and Banjermasin alone. In all there were thirty-one articles of restriction, "serving to shackle every movement of commerce, and to extinguish every spirit of enterprise, for the narrow, selfish purposes of what may be called the fanaticism of gain." The consequence was that honest traffic was paralysed, and an opportunity and indirect encouragement given to piracy. Indeed, the Dutch winked at this as it hampered smuggling by European and native traders. They resented it only when their own trade was interfered with by the marauders.
After visiting the Celebes, where he spent four months, Mr. Brooke sailed for Sarawak from Singapore on August 18, 1840. His kindly feeling for the Rajah Muda Hasim prompted him to pay another visit to Sarawak, taking it on his way to Manila and China. He found the condition of the country as distracted as ever, "with no probability of any termination of a state of affairs so adverse to every object which I had in view," and so decided to quit the scene and proceed on his voyage. On notifying his departure to the Rajah, he was urgently pressed to remain; every topic was exhausted to excite his compassion. The Rajah laid his difficulties before him, and expressed "his resolution to die here rather than abandon his undertaking—to die deserted and disgraced"; and it was compassion for his miserable situation that induced Mr. Brooke to alter his intention.
The rebellion had lasted for nearly four years, and for the efforts made to quell it might well last for a century, and the whole country, except Kuching, become independent. Starvation had compelled many of the Land-Dayaks to submit, but that was the only advantage that had been gained. Hasim was in ill odour at Bruni because he had effected nothing, and the Orang Kaya di Gadong, a Bruni minister, had been sent by the Sultan to stir him up to greater activity. But how to exert himself, how with cowardly pangirans to come to close quarters with the rebels he could not see, and in his helplessness and discouragement he caught at the opportunity offered by the arrival of Brooke.
With some reluctance Mr. Brooke consented to assist Hasim against the insurgents, and proceeded to Siniawan; but after having been up-river a short time he returned to Kuching, disgusted by the supineness and inertness of Makota and the other leaders, and announced his intention of sailing for Manila. Hasim saw that Brooke's departure would deprive him of his last chance of reducing the rebels, and that he would have to return to Bruni in disgrace. Again he urged Brooke to stay, and he offered him the country if he would return up-river and take command of his forces. "He offered me," wrote Brooke, "the country of Siniawan and Sarawak, with its government and trade;" in addition he offered to grant him the title of Rajah.