Rajah Brooke

by Sir Spenser St. John

CHAPTER VII

EVENTS IN THE SAGO RIVERS—THE RAJAH PROCEEDS TO ENGLAND—CORDIAL RECEPTION—FIRST PARALYTIC STROKE—BUYS BURRATOR—TROUBLES IN SARAWAK—LOYALTY OF THE POPULATION—THE RAJAH RETURNS TO BORNEO—SETTLES MUKA AFFAIRS WITH SULTAN—INSTALLS CAPTAIN BROOKE AS HEIR APPARENT—AGAIN LEAVES FOR ENGLAND—SARAWAK RECOGNISED BY ENGLAND—LIFE AT BURRATOR—SECOND AND THIRD ATTACKS OF PARALYSIS—HIS DEATH AND WILL

The insurrection over, and all his absent officers returned from England, the Rajah had more time for the rest he required; but no sooner had a little calm been restored to him, than he was strongly moved by the news of the Mutiny in India. ‘He turned clammy with agitation when he first heard of it’; and how true is the ring of the following—‘I felt then, annoyed and disgraced though I have been, that I was an Englishman, and the ties and feelings which men have wantonly outraged are planted too deep to be torn up.’

Though it is highly probable that the many changes which had taken place in the management of the army in India had conduced to the Mutiny, by separating the officers from their men, and weakening the dependence of the soldiers on their superiors in order to concentrate everything in the hands of the War Department at Calcutta or elsewhere, yet one of its causes was the great increase in the number of married officers, who were completely out of touch with the native element, and heard nothing of what was going on among the men in the regiment.

A little later the Rajah wrote to his nephew, Captain Brooke: ‘I have sometimes thought that since the earlier days the bonds of sympathy between the native and European have been slacker.’ These words reflected the thoughts which had arisen in my own mind during the visit I paid to Sarawak in 1857. It was not so much that there was any outward sign of the mutual sympathy being less, but there was little of that old familiar intercourse which undoubtedly produced and fostered it. And this, ungallant as the opinion may seem, I put down to the presence of the ladies. After dinner they retired to the drawing-room, and we could hear music and singing going on, and most of the gentlemen were eager to join them. The native chiefs, and others who had continued their evening visits, soon became aware of this, and gradually they frequented Government House less and less, and finally ceased going except when business called them there. Under these conditions the same intimate friendship could not continue. I have been so long absent from Sarawak that I know but little of the present state of affairs there, but I fear that the former easy intercourse was never wholly re-established, and that those pleasant evenings with the best class of natives are things of the distant past, in fact, of the days of the old Rajah.

For these and many other reasons I think that gentlemen who govern native states should not marry, or if an exception be made in favour of the chief, certainly his subordinates, who are employed in out-stations where natives abound, should not be married. And this rule might well be applied to the officers sent to our North-Western frontier in India. Marriage immediately separates the governors from the governed. Ladies as a rule cannot be brought to understand that the natives can in any case be considered as equals, and are apt to despise them accordingly. With such ideas, how can bonds of sympathy exist between the rulers and the ruled?

At that time, 1857, the Sago Rivers, north-east of the Rejang, were very much disturbed. Though there were some extenuating circumstances, the action of Sarawak was not altogether free from blame. A quarrel had arisen between two native chiefs, one the governor of the district of Muka Pangeran Nipa, and the other his cousin, Pangeran Matusin. The first act of the tragedy was that the latter dashed into the house of the former and murdered him and eleven of his women and children. The second was the driving out of Matusin and the slaughter of thirty-five of his friends and relations. Sarawak, then administered by the Rajah’s nephew, unfortunately sided with Matusin, and interfered with arms in her hands within the Sultan’s territory.

Before, however, these latter acts occurred, the Rajah had been to Brunei to try and induce the Sultan to let him settle matters in the Sago Rivers,[10] and although no formal documents were executed he was requested to see that right was done, but the Sultan would have nothing to do with that man of violence, Matusin. The Rajah went to Muka, and a period of calm followed this visit, but nothing was settled on a permanent basis.

Sir James now decided to proceed to England, as many important affairs required his presence there. On his arrival he found everyone disposed to treat him with distinction, and Lords Clarendon and Palmerston were especially cordial. They even offered a Protectorate, all that was really wanted to ensure the stability of Sarawak and its future progress. But that unfortunate Commission had made the Rajah suspicious of Ministers. He thought they might grant a Protectorate, and then thoroughly neglect Borneo affairs. This was, no doubt, an error, as under the Protectorate of England, Sarawak has progressed to its present prosperous state without needing, or being required to submit to, the slightest interference on the part of Her Majesty’s Government. The Rajah thought, however, that if England had a monetary interest in Sarawak she would be more apt to look after the nascent State. He therefore asked that they should repay him the money he had expended in bringing the country to its present condition. Another reason for this request was that after the Chinese insurrection he had been compelled to borrow £5000 from the Borneo Company, and he wished to repay it. Every penny of his own fortune had been spent, and his only assured income was the pension of £70 which had been granted to him on account of the wound received in Burmah. But this does not alter my opinion that he should have accepted the Protectorate without further question. The Government next offered to establish a naval station in one of the ports of Sarawak; why this was not accepted I never heard.

On February 21, 1858, Sir James Brooke went to a Drawing-Room, and Her Majesty spoke to him most graciously, and the Prince Consort shook him cordially by the hand; indeed, the Royal Family ever showed the greatest interest in his career; and his reception at the Prime Minister’s greatly pleased him.

Then came a change of Ministry, as Lord Palmerston had been defeated on the Conspiracy Bill, and the Rajah instantly felt a difference in the tone adopted towards him by the Government. Lord Derby cared little for Borneo, though his son, then Lord Stanley, showed a very appreciative interest in Sarawak.

The Rajah’s friends thought that by continually agitating, by dinners, meetings, and deputations, they might influence the Government, and they persuaded him to join in the movement, but upon a temperament so nervous as the Rajah’s this wrought infinite mischief. His nephews also were wounding his feelings by writing from Sarawak that the Rajah desired to ‘sell Sarawak into bondage.’ No wonder he felt dreadfully ‘hurt and humiliated,’ and cried out that ‘he was weary, weary of heart, without faith, without hope in man’s honesty.’

On the 21st October 1858, after making a brief speech in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, he says, ‘I felt a creeping movement come over me. I soon knew what it was, and walked with Fairbairn[11] to the doctor’s. Life, I thought, was gone, and I rejoiced in the hope that my death would do for Sarawak what my life had not been able to effect.’ Thus the Rajah described his first attack of paralysis. This closed his active participation in the movement, though his friends did all they could, and a very strong effort was made to interest the commercial classes and induce the Government to do something in support of his position in Borneo.

As soon as the Rajah could be moved with safety, he went to his cottage at Godstone to rest, but with little result, as his friends were then negotiating with the English Government respecting Sarawak. His views on the subject were quite clear and he was now strongly in favour of a Protectorate. Many wished the Government to take the country over as a Crown colony, but that would have proved an expensive failure, as the people were not sufficiently advanced to bear the necessary taxation.

A great deputation, one of the most influential that ever waited on a Minister, had an interview with Lord Derby, but all to no purpose. His lordship was as unsympathetic as he could well be. He failed to appreciate the noble conduct of the Rajah, and could only look upon his efforts in Sarawak as a sort of speculation—half commercial, half political. He had evidently not taken the trouble to study the subject, or he was incapable of appreciating a generous nature. But the Cabinet was not of the same opinion, and soon overtures were made by Lord Malmesbury with reference to a Protectorate being granted by England. Before anything could be settled, however, Lord Derby’s Ministry resigned.

The Rajah was now again worried by his pecuniary embarrassments. The Borneo Company pressed for the repayment of the £5000 advanced after the Chinese insurrection, but a generous lady came forward and freed him from this claim. At the same time some of his friends raised a testimonial to mark the appreciation of his public work. Had there not been some underhand opposition by those who pretended to support it, it might have reached the amount expected, namely, £20,000, but it only realised £8800. With a portion of this he bought the small estate of Burrator on the skirts of Dartmoor, and here he ever felt truly at home. He became strongly attached to the place, and it was difficult to make him leave it even for a season. It was a charmingly wild spot, under the shadow of the great tors which render the country about them so wonderfully picturesque. The air is pure and bracing, and his sojourn there may be said to have relit the lamp of life which had been almost extinguished.

In Sarawak affairs were in a bad state. The unreasonable efforts made by its Government to support Pangeran Matusin in Muka, the savage instigator of the civil war, were the cause of much strife, and the illegal conduct of the officer administering the Government was deeply resented in Borneo. The Sarawak officials were possessed with the monomania that the Sultan of Borneo was always intriguing against them, which was a pure myth, as the Brunei Government had neither the energy nor the power to affect them.

The intriguers were within their own territories, for whilst they were watching for outside plots and hostile action, a dangerous conspiracy was being hatched by some discontented chiefs. The heads of this conspiracy were the ex-Datu Patingi Gapoor, now named Datu Haji, as he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, who had been permitted to return to Sarawak after the Chinese insurrection, and Sherif Musahor, a chief of Arabian descent, established on the Rejang. The first evidence of this treachery was the surprise of the fort at Kanowit, and the murder of two Sarawak officers, Messrs Fox and Steele. Yet so ignorant of the real plotters were the English officials at the capital, that when an expedition was sent to punish the murderers, Tani, one of our best friends, was accused as an accomplice and was executed. As he was led forth to death he protested his innocence, but added, ‘You will soon know who is the real culprit.’ In the end not one of the actual murderers escaped, as they were tracked for years, and were all ultimately killed.

Sherif Musahor, however, was the real instigator of these murders, and the truth soon came out that the Datu Haji and he were the promoters of all the disturbances. The former was banished and the latter driven out of the country. He had practically no influence in Sarawak, and the Malay chiefs were as ready to follow Charles Johnson in his campaign against him as against any other enemy of the Government. All the stories about his mysterious influence were all nonsense, and had no effect on the minds of the Sarawak people.

Some of the biographers of Sir James Brooke have fallen into the error of supposing that Sarawak was abandoned by the English Government during these perilous years. This, as I have already shown, was not so, for immediately after the Chinese insurrection, both Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon offered a Protectorate, but this offer was refused, except under conditions difficult for the British Government to accept. A naval station placed within Sarawak territory was also proposed; this likewise was rejected. Therefore, it must be confessed, the charge of entirely abandoning Sarawak was not well founded, as the refusal to accept British protection tied the hands of Ministers. The British Government went as far as they thought they could safely go, but, as I have already remarked, the Rajah did not feel satisfied with a bare Protectorate, as he mistrusted their sincerity.

On my way home from Brunei to England, early in 1860, I stopped at Singapore, and falling in there with Charles Grant, who had come over to recruit an English crew for a small gunboat, I heard of all that had been going on in the Rajah’s territories. I resolved to go over to Sarawak to judge of the situation for myself, so as to be able to carry home the latest news to Sir James Brooke. All real danger was now past. The energy and courage of the Rajah’s nephew, Charles Johnson, the present Rajah, had triumphed over all difficulties, and the coast as far as the Rejang was completely tranquil. It is easy to be wise after the event, but I did not then believe, nor do I believe now, that the Sarawak Malays were in any way affected by the plottings of the Datu Haji or of Sherif Musahor. They were afraid of some assassinations of foreigners until the former chief was banished the country, but on my arrival, in March 1860, I found them as sound and as loyal as ever they had been. If they had not been so, there was nothing to prevent them expelling every European from the country. They were all unanimous in their praise of the manner in which Charles Johnson had met the danger and crushed it.

Things were indeed now about to assume a brighter aspect. The same generous lady who had paid off the debt due to the Borneo Company found the money to buy a steamer, and with a steamer the stability of Sarawak would be finally established. The Rajah visited Glasgow to look out for a suitable one, and soon selected the Rainbow, for so he christened her, as the emblem of hope. Arriving in England shortly after this purchase, I went down to Scotland with my old chief to see the steamer start. There was no more despondency. He would nail his colours to the mast. In fact, the presence of the steamer on the coast as the property of the Sarawak Government closed the period of alarms, of plots and troubles, and since then I do not believe there has been a single dangerous conspiracy to check the progress of this little kingdom. But before the Rainbow arrived on the coast there was to be one more difficulty.

When Johnson drove Sherif Musahor out of the districts subject to Sarawak, he first fled to Muka, and then proceeded to Brunei and Labuan. His stories did not influence the Sultan, who knew the man, and was well persuaded that he had instigated the murder of Fox and Steele. Indeed, before I left Brunei, he had confided to me his suspicions. But the Sultan was still angry with the action of Sarawak, which had treated his sovereign rights with great contempt, so he encouraged the fugitive to proceed to Labuan and lay his complaints before Governor Edwardes, who was known to be hostile both to Sir James Brooke and his rising raj. This led to an interchange of views between the Governor and the Sultan, in which I fear the former promised to use all his influence to lower the position of His Highness’s great feudatory, and he sent for a ship of war to carry out his intentions. Unfortunately, he obtained an Indian steamer, the Victoria, instead of one of Her Majesty’s navy. No naval officer would have countenanced his proceedings.

Early in 1860, Captain Brooke returned to Sarawak and took over the administration of the Government, and I am persuaded he had the firm intention of living at peace with his neighbours, but he found that the high-handed proceedings of the previous year had been so deeply resented that the Governor of Muka, Pangeran Dipa, son of the murdered chief, had ordered all the Sarawak trading vessels to leave his district, and having fortified the entrance to the Muka River, awaited the effect of Sherif Musahor’s appeal to the Acting Consul-General.

Captain Brooke, thinking that he could settle these difficulties by negotiation, went with a small force to Muka to interview Pangeran Dipa, determined to try every method of conciliation, but no sooner did his vessels enter the Muka than the guns of the fort opened fire on them. Captain Brooke thereupon retired to the entrance of the river, built a stockade, and sent for reinforcements. These soon came pouring in, a brisk attack was opened upon the enemy, and success would soon have crowned their efforts, had not Governor Edwardes appeared in his steamer and commanded Captain Brooke on his allegiance to suspend his operations. He naturally protested against such interference, but prudently withdrew his forces, and retired to Sarawak. The Governor had brought down with him Sherif Musahor, the murderer of his fellow-countrymen.

Captain Brooke now appealed for justice to the British Government, and Lord John Russell, who was at the Foreign Office, thanked him for his conciliatory and prudent conduct, and then took Mr Edwardes in hand.

When I left Brunei early in 1860, I had requested Mr Edwardes to accept the acting appointment of Consul-General, which had enabled him to interfere on the coasts of the Sultan’s dominions. But as soon as I heard of his violent proceedings I could not but offer to sacrifice my leave and return to Borneo to resume my official duties.

Sir James Brooke decided to go back to the East by the same mail in which I had taken my passage. From Singapore the Rajah went over to Sarawak in his own steamer, the Rainbow, and I followed in H.M.S. Nimrod, Captain Arthur. I called in at Kuching, and there addressed a letter to the Council of Sarawak, stating that Her Majesty’s Government disapproved of Mr Edwardes’s interference. I then went on to Labuan, relieved my substitute of his position as Consul-General, and proceeded to my post in Brunei. I found the Sultan very reserved, and rumours were rife that the Governor of Labuan had promised not only to interfere in Muka, but to remove all the English from Sarawak, and restore that country to the Sultan. This, I imagine, was but an invention of the Oriental mind, which jumped too hastily to conclusions. At all events the Sultan and all his high officers of State were still very angry, and naturally so, at the original armed interference of Sarawak within their territory. But when they found that the Rajah himself had arrived at Kuching, that he would pay over all the fines his nephews had raised within the Sultan’s frontiers, and that he was prepared to make advantageous proposals to the Brunei Government, their brows cleared, and I found myself once more a welcome visitor in their Halls of Audience.

The Rajah arrived, and matters were soon explained and arranged. The Brunei Government decided to banish Sherif Musahor from their dominions, and to send for the Governor of Muka to explain his conduct. I was requested by both parties to act as mediator, and I went as soon as possible to Muka in Her Majesty’s corvette Charybdis, Captain Keane. We entered the river with all the boats of the ship, and were soon behind the fortifications with two hundred marines and blue-jackets. This judicious display of force awed these turbulent chiefs. No show of resistance was made, and both Sherif Musahor and Pangeran Dipa decided to obey the Sultan’s mandate.

Little, therefore, remained to be done. The Rajah went up to Muka with a large squadron, and all the chiefs there kept their word and submitted. Dipa went off to Brunei, and Musahor was exiled to the Straits Settlements. With all his faults, nay, crimes, I could not but pity him. He had been such a good fellow in former years, and he had been so injudiciously treated by the local Sarawak officers with whom he had come in contact, men very inferior to him in every way, and totally unfitted to deal with a man of rank, a supposed descendant of the prophet Mahomed. He lived for many years in Singapore, but I do not know whether he is still alive.

The Rajah took up his residence for some weeks in the fort at Muka to endeavour to restore order in what might be called a regular chaos of misgovernment, and succeeded to a great extent. It was regretted by all that his stay was so short, as his magnetic influence over the natives was so remarkable that they all were ready to carry out his views and submit to his superior judgment. No one only accustomed to European countries could imagine the confused state of affairs, for no man among the lower classes appeared to know whether he was a free man or a slave, and if the latter, who was his master, as he had probably been sold half-a-dozen times by people who had no authority over him. However, in most cases, these sales were more nominal than real, as the self-created masters, unless chiefs, seldom attempted to enforce their fictitious rights.

We soon went to Brunei again, and then the Rajah gladdened the heart of the Sultan by taking over the Sago districts on a yearly payment of four thousand five hundred dollars, and giving him a year’s revenue in advance. Past complaints were now put on one side, and all was peace.

I had been promoted to be Chargé d’Affaires in Hayti, so that as soon as I had introduced my successor to the Sultan, I prepared to proceed home; but as the Rajah had decided to leave for England also, we returned together to Sarawak, where he wished to arrange some affairs before bidding adieu to Borneo.

At his nephew, Captain Brooke’s, request he publicly installed him as Rajah Muda or heir apparent, and left him in charge of the Government. To this ceremony Sir James Brooke summoned all the principal men of the country, and introducing Captain Brooke as the Rajah Muda, bade them all farewell; adding, however, that should his presence ever be necessary, he would return to resume the Government and to aid them in their difficulties. I never heard a better speech; many of the audience burst into tears, and all were deeply moved.

Definite explanations were exchanged between the uncle and his nephew, which gave the Rajah a free hand in all negotiations in England, and these arrangements were reduced to writing. I also had a distinct explanation with Captain Brooke as to his views, so that I might advance them as far as I could agree with them.

We started for Singapore in the Rainbow, and, as we were detained there by an accident to the mail steamer, the inhabitants of the settlement, to show that no unkind feeling remained in any section of society, gave the Rajah a ball. At supper his health was drunk with all the honours; some good speeches were made, and most of his friends then said farewell to him, thinking they should see his face no more. Though rejoiced at my removal from Brunei, I could not leave the Further East without regret, as I had spent many happy years there.

Among Sir James Brooke’s most active friends and supporters was Mr John Abel Smith, who was very intimate with Lord John Russell, our Foreign Minister, and, in 1862, he opened negotiations with him and other Ministers for the recognition of Sarawak as an independent State. At first there was a proposal to make it a Crown Colony, but that was prudently discarded. Then a Protectorate was proposed, and at last all the negotiations centred on one point, the recognition of Sarawak. There was little or no opposition in the Ministry, when someone unfortunately suggested that Lord Elgin, the Governor-General of India, should send over an official to report on the actual condition of Sarawak. The Governor of the Straits Settlements, Colonel Cavanagh, was chosen to prosecute this enquiry. Instead of simply carrying out his instructions, he showed Captain Brooke the secret and confidential papers which had been entrusted to him. The latter thought that his rights were being tampered with, whereas, had he been fully informed, he would have found that recognition was the only question then under the consideration of the Ministry. But Captain Brooke was not quite himself at that time. He had just lost his second wife and his eldest son, and the inquisitiveness of the Governor probably chafed him. Whatever may have been the cause, he wrote to Lord John Russell to say that the country could not be handed over to England without his and the people’s consent, and then sent a defiant letter to his uncle announcing that he had assumed the government of the country and would defend his rights by force.

The Rajah could not accept such a defiance. He returned to Sarawak, met his repentant nephew at Singapore, and sent him home on leave. Bad advisers in England induced him to withdraw his submission, and it ended in a complete estrangement between the uncle and nephew. He was deposed from his position as heir apparent, and thenceforth he ceased to have any interest in Sarawak. He had been my most intimate friend, and I regretted his action exceedingly, particularly as it was one of my own confidential memoranda to our Government which had incited his ire. This memorandum related to a different question from that which was before the Government, and had he been more patient he would have learnt that Lord John Russell fully recognised the inhabitants of Sarawak as a free people, whose consent would have been necessary to any transfer.

When the news reached England that the Rajah’s authority was uncontested in Sarawak, and that Captain Brooke had retired from the scene, Lord John Russell determined to acknowledge its independence, and appointed a consul, who had to ask for his exequatur from the Sarawak Government. Thus this much vexed question closed to the satisfaction of all those who loved and admired the Rajah, but not to that of a group of false friends who had been working against him in all kinds of underhand ways. But as these are now turned to dust I will not refer to them again. It was a triumph for the Rajah, and was the reward of his constancy, of his high principle, his irreproachable character and devotion to his people. The evilly-disposed were now silenced, and left him at peace for the remainder of his life.

I was at that time in Hayti and did not see the Rajah during the years 1863, 1864 and 1865, but we kept up a constant correspondence. I could not rise superior to injuries as he did, and in one of my letters I slightly reproached him with appearing to forgive a person who had deeply injured him, and remained impenitent. His answer shows the kindly nature of the man. ‘True it is he injured me, and deeply, and perhaps what you say is true, he will injure me again, but in Sarawak I cannot quarrel or feel resentment against anyone, however great the evil done to myself.’

Mr Ricketts was named consul at Sarawak, and he soon sent home highly interesting reports about the country. He stayed there two years, but as there was really nothing for a consul to do, a vice-consul succeeded him. At present Great Britain has a vice-consul at Brunei, who is accredited to the Rajah of Sarawak as well as to the Sultan.

The Rajah, during these years, really enjoyed life. His anxieties had almost ceased. The revenues of Sarawak were improving, thus ensuring increased stability. There was both peace and contentment there, and trade was rapidly extending throughout all its dependencies. His own health was remarkably good, and he could enjoy visits to country houses, and occasionally indulge in partridge shooting. He could now write, ‘In spite of trials and anxieties, calumny and misrepresentation, I have been a happy man, and can pillow my head with the consciousness of a well-spent life of sacrifice and devotion to a good cause.’

I never knew a man so ready to help when he saw the strong oppress the weak. As an instance of this, he boldly threw the weight of his influence on the side of Bishop Colenso, when he saw the great Church dignitaries ready to condemn him.

The Rajah spent much of his time during the remaining years of his life at Burrator, and became as popular and as beloved among the small farmers and cottagers as ever he had been in the Far East during the height of his prosperity. He often took me to visit these rough but kindly people, and it was a pleasure to see how they all greeted him. I particularly noticed how the children would run out of the cottages to touch his hand, as if his gentle smile fascinated them. He did all he could for the parish, helped to restore the ruined church, and, in 1865, was cheered by the arrival of a clergyman and his wife, Mr and Mrs Dakyn, who remained his kind and tender friends to the day of his death.

In the autumn of 1866 he received a severe shock. His nephew wrote that he had sold the steamer Rainbow to pay off a debt due to their Singapore agent—a debt incurred through careless extravagance in carrying out too many public works at a time. For a moment it almost stupefied him, as this steamer had not yet been paid for. We soon proved to him, however, that there was but little cause for uneasiness, as the Sarawak revenue was ample to meet all disbursements, if more care were exercised in the expenditure on public works. But Sarawak without a steamer, he felt assured, would sink back into its old state of insecurity, and therefore a steamer must be had. By great exertion he succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and purchased a vessel which was christened the Royalist, after his famous yacht.

I stayed with the Rajah at Burrator during the autumn of 1866, and he appeared very much stronger. He took his daily rides and walks, but he was full of anxiety about Sarawak, which continued until the steamer was secured. When we were alone we would take our afternoon ride and then return to tea, and between that meal and dinner he enjoyed his reading. He liked to have someone with him, and every now and then would put down his book and talk of any question that was then interesting him. After a while he would resume his reading and we would both remain quiet for a time. I never knew anyone who understood better what has been called ‘the luxury of silence.’

Two or three days before Christmas I left Burrator for London, and we went up together as far as Plymouth. I never saw the Rajah more gay or full of spirits, and he played whist with great enjoyment, but on his return home, the next day, he was struck down by a second attack of paralysis, and we were hastily summoned to his bedside. He partially recovered, but was never again able to write. His career was closed. He lived on, however, for about two years, when the final attack came at Burrator where, fortunately, he was surrounded by many of his nearest relatives. He died on the 11th June 1868. After his third attack he did not recover consciousness, but passed peacefully away. He was buried at Burrator under the yew tree in the churchyard, at the spot he had chosen himself. His death was felt by all his neighbours as a personal loss, as he was, in truth, the friend of everyone in his parish.

More than thirty years have passed since the Rajah’s death, and yet the admiration for his character and his great qualities has but increased among those who knew him well or could appreciate the work he had done. I have endeavoured to portray him as he appeared to me, but there was a grandeur about his personality which it is difficult to describe. He could not enter a room without the impression being conveyed that you were in the presence of great superiority, and yet in manner he was ever simple and courteous.

The purity of his private life was such that it could not but impress both natives and Europeans, and that magnetic influence, as it is called, which he undoubtedly possessed was but the result of a superior mind, ever influenced by a kindly heart. He was a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, and it will be difficult to look upon his like again.

The Rajah bequeathed Sarawak to his nephew, the present Sir Charles Brooke, G.C.M.G. He had lived to see the country prosper, and died without anxiety as to its future. The public debt due to him by Sarawak, he passed on to his successor, and the only encumbrance remaining was for the money advanced to buy the steamers, and the warlike expenditure incurred during the Muka expedition. This was but a slight burden on the finances, and was soon paid off. I rather dwell on this subject, as an unfounded statement has been made that at the Rajah’s death Sarawak was a bankrupt State. There is no ground for such an assertion. The paltry debt due was covered tenfold by the value of the ships, the buildings, the public works, and the rising revenue which had accrued principally from the security given by the presence on the coast of Borneo of the steamers in the service of Sarawak.

I will add a copy of the Rajah’s will, as far as it relates to public matters:—

‘The last will and testament of Sir James Brooke, K.C.B., Rajah of Sarawak. I, James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, of Burrator, in the County of Devon, give, devise and bequeath all that my sovereignty of Sarawak, aforesaid, and all the rights and privileges whatsoever thereto belonging unto my nephew, Charles Johnson Brooke, Tuan Muda of Sarawak, son of the Rev. Francis Charles Johnson, and the heirs male of his body lawfully issuing; and in default of such issue unto my nephew, Stuart Johnson, another son of the said Francis Charles Johnson, and the heirs male of his body lawfully issuing; and in default of such issue I give, devise and bequeath the said sovereignty, its rights and privileges, unto Her Majesty, the Queen of England, her heirs and assigns for ever; and I appoint Miss Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts of Stratton Street, Piccadilly, and Thomas Fairbairn, of the city of Manchester, Esquire, and John Abel Smith, of Chester Square, in the County of Middlesex, Esquire, M.P., trustees of this my will to see the purposes aforesaid carried into effect. I bequeath to my said nephew, Charles Johnson Brooke, his heirs, executors and administrators, all my real and personal estate in the Island of Borneo and England, and constitute him likewise my residuary legatee.’ (After mentioning some private legacies which he wished paid, he added), ‘I leave all my papers to the care of Spenser St John, Esq., H.B.M. Chargé d’affaires at Hayti, whom I appoint as one of my executors, together with Alexander Knox, Esquire,’ etc.

Sir Charles Brooke, the present Rajah, has three sons living, and his brother, Stuart Johnson, died, leaving one son.