In the suppression of piracy James Brooke found a vigorous ally in Captain (afterwards Admiral) Keppel, who, in command of H.M.S. Dido, was summoned from the China station in 1843 for this service. Various expeditions were organized and sent out against the marauders, the story of which has been told by himself. The pirates were attacked in their strongholds by Captain Keppel and other commanders of British ships. They fought desperately, and the slaughter was immense. The pirate crews found the entrances to the rivers blocked up by English gunboats, and their retreat cut off. These strenuous measures soon cleared the seas.
The practice of head-hunting was also dealt with by Sir James Brooke. He declared it to be a crime punishable with death, and by his rigorous treatment of head-hunting parties he gave the deathblow to this horrible national custom.
After his strenuous life in Sarawak, Sir James Brooke had a great desire to visit England. Besides other reasons, the wish to see his relatives and friends, he felt he could effect more for the inhabitants of Borneo by a personal interview with Government Ministers in England than by correspondence. He left Sarawak, and reached England early in October, 1847. There honours awaited him. He was presented with the freedom of the City of London; Oxford University conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.; he was graciously received at Windsor by the Queen and the Prince Consort. The British Government recognized the work he had done, and appointed him Governor of Labuan and Commissioner and Consul-General in Borneo, and made him a K.C.B. The warrant of investiture was issued by Her Majesty on May 22, 1848.
The extirpation of piracy was the first step towards introducing into the country the blessings of a settled government, with all its civilizing influences. But he was not satisfied with this, and soon began to take measures for the establishment of a Christian Mission in Sarawak. When Sir James Brooke visited England in 1847, he appealed to the Church, and especially to the two Universities, to come to his aid. Neither of the two great missionary societies was able at the time to undertake this new enterprise through lack of funds, and a new organization, the “Borneo Church Mission,” was founded, which laboured in the island for a few years. Then, in 1854, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was able to take up the work, and has ever since been responsible for it. The original organization had, however, done well in the choice of the missionaries it sent out, the first of whom was the Rev. F. T. McDougall, who was consecrated Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in 1855.
My father, the Rev. W. H. Gomes, B.D., worked under Bishop McDougall as a missionary among the Dyaks of Lundu from 1852 to 1867, and I myself have worked, under Bishop Hose, as a missionary in Sarawak, for seventeen years, and have thus gained an intimate knowledge of the people and of their lives, now so rapidly changing under Western influence.
Sir James Brooke was a man of the highest personal character. That a young English officer, with a fortune of his own, should have been willing to devote his whole life to improving the condition of the Dyaks was a grand thing. That he should have been able, by perfectly legitimate means, to do this in the teeth of much official and other opposition; that he should have been able to put down piracy and head-hunting, with their unspeakable accompaniments of misery and cruelty, and to do it all with the hearty good-will of the people under his rule,—this was indeed an achievement which might have seemed hardly possible.
The present Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Charles Brooke, is a nephew of the first Rajah. He joined his uncle in 1852, when he held the rank of lieutenant in the British navy. For ten years he played an important part in the arduous work of punishing rebels and establishing a sound government. In 1857, when the Chinese insurrection broke out, it was his action that led to the punishment of the insurgents and the restoration of peace. In 1863, on the retirement of the first Rajah, he assumed control of the country, and five years later, on the death of his predecessor, he became Rajah of Sarawak. Ever since he became the responsible ruler of the country, Sarawak has advanced steadily, and made great moral and material progress. To the general public the first Rajah will always appear the romantic, heroic figure; but, while yielding full measure of praise and admiration to the work of a great man, those who know the country will, I think, agree with me that the heavier burden of working steadily and unwearyingly, when the romance of novelty had worn off, has been borne by his successor. With talents not less than those of his illustrious uncle he has carried out, in the face of disappointments and the most serious obstacles, a policy of regeneration for which the striking exploits of Sir James Brooke merely paved the way.
Photo. Bassano