It is a marvel how these poor creatures live at all under the terrible tortures and ill-treatment they endure, sometimes for months, before they reach their destination and settle down as slaves to the worst of masters—very demons, not men. The captives state that when the pirates take a vessel, they kill every one who makes any resistance, plunder and sink their boats or ships, and when those they spare are first taken on board their own prahus, they put a rattan, or black rope-halter, round their necks, beat them with a flat piece of bamboo on the elbows and knees and the muscles of the arms and legs, so that they cannot use them to swim or run away. After a while, when sufficiently tamed, they are put to the sweeps and made to row in gangs, with one of their fellow-captives as a mandore or foreman over them, who is furnished with a rattan to keep them at their work; and if he does not do this effectually, he is "krissed" and thrown overboard, and another man put in his place. If any of the rowers jump overboard, the pirates have a supply of three-pronged and barbed spears, with long bamboo handles, ready to throw at them. When hit by one of these they can neither swim nor run, and are easily recaptured. They are made to row in relays night and day, and to keep them awake they put cayenne pepper in their eyes or cut them with their knives and put pepper in their wounds.
We found, on reckoning up, that we had picked up 165 people, and that 150 to 200 men had got to land from the vessels we sank near the shore. In every pirate vessel there were forty or or fifty Illanuns, fighting men, all well armed, each having a rifle or musket besides his native weapons, and from 60 to 70 captives, many of whom were killed by the pirates when they found themselves beaten; among them two women. Seven of the women and four of the children were our own Muka people[[273]] and it was indeed most touching to witness the joy and gratitude of them and their relations when we returned them to their friends. Of the Illanuns we captured 32, ten of them boys. Some have died since of their wounds, the remainder are in irons in the fort here. The boys have been given out by Brooke for five years to respectable people to train and bring up. Very few of the pirates live to tell the tale; some captives assured us in the boat they were in there were only two out of the forty fighting-men who had not been killed or wounded by our fire, when we gave them the stem and cut them down.
Under the present system at Labuan, and the difficulties thrown in the way of our men-of-war against attacking these wretches when they are known to be in the neighbourhood, England with all her power and philanthropy is doing absolutely nothing towards putting an end to this abominable and most extensive system of rapine, murder, and slavery. It is impossible to estimate the destruction and the havoc, the murder and the amount of slave-dealing carried on by these wretches in their yearly cruises. The prahus we met were but one of the many squadrons that leave Sulu every year. Seven months had these wretches been devastating the villages on the coast, capturing slaves, taking and sinking trading vessels. Their course was along the coasts of Celebes, down the Macassar Straits to Madura and then along the Northern coast of Java, and the South of Borneo, up the Caramata passage to Borneo, to go home by Sarawak and Labuan. The other five pirate vessels parted company from them to go over to Balliton[[274]] and Banca Straits, and doubtless they too will carry their depredations right up into the Straits of Singapore and pick up English subjects and injure English trade, as those we met have done. But apart from all our local feelings, and danger from these people, it makes an Englishman out here ashamed to feel that his own dear country, which we would fain regard as the liberator of the slave and the avenger of the wronged, is in truth doing nothing against the system, fraught with incalculable misery to so large a section of the human race. For it must be remembered that the slavery these people suffer is far more crushing to them than the African who is taken as a savage to serve civilised and at least, nominally, Christian masters; but these are generally well-to-do men of civilised nations who are made the slaves of utter fiends, who work and torture them to death one year, only to replace them by fresh victims whom they capture the next. It is indeed vae victis with them, and I think it is the duty of every Christian man and every Christian nation to do all that can be done to rid the earth of such horrible and dangerous monsters, and to punish the Sultan of Sulu and all who abet and aid them. The Dutch and Spaniards are always doing something, but not enough, and during the last four or five years, these pirate fleets have been gradually getting more and more numerous and daring on these coasts, and now it is for England to rouse herself and complete the work of putting them down. Labuan is near their haunts and it might be done from thence. A few thousands spent out here yearly for the purpose would, I believe in my heart, soon effect more real and lasting good than the millions which are being spent on the coast of Africa. All honour is due to Sir James Brooke and his nephew, the Rajah Muda, and the other officers of the Sarawak government, who in spite of misrepresentation and factious opposition, through evil report and good report, have persevered for years in constant, steady, and systematic efforts to put down piracy on this coast and chastise these villainous marauders whenever they come into Sarawak waters. If the English government will now act with and assist us, we shall soon clear the Sarawak and Labuan waters of these pests. Assisted by the knowledge and experience of our natives, the work would be done surely and effectually; but single-handed the Sarawak government notwithstanding all it has done, cannot carry it out. We want means; if England or Englishmen will give us that, we shall gladly do the work, and feel that we are delivering our fellow-men, and doing our duty to God, who has commanded us to free the captive and deliver the oppressed. While at the same time we shall be averting a danger which is ever threatening us at our own doors, and has so long crippled the energies and resources of this country.
The original fleet of Lanuns had consisted of eleven prahus, but off the western coast of Borneo five had parted company and stayed behind to cruise around Banka and Belitong. Shortly afterwards one of her Majesty's ships fell in with three of them and attempted to take them, but the pirates managed to effect their escape.
On board the little steamer were at the time eight Europeans, the stalwart Pangiran Matusin, a fighting haji, and fifteen natives. But though the pirates were far more numerous, and were all well armed, yet the steamer had the preponderating advantage of her screw, enabling her to ram each native vessel, cut her in half and send her to the bottom, so that there could not be doubt for a moment what would be the outcome of such a conflict.
The results of the fight were these:—
| Pirates killed or drowned | 190 |
| Escaped | 19 |
| Brought prisoners to Sarawak | 31 |
| 240 | |
| Captives killed or drowned | 140 |
| Captives liberated | 194 |
| Captives run away into the jungle, and subsequently rescued | 56 |
| 390 |
The prisoners, with the exception of the lads, were all executed. The lads were put to work on the gunboats, and became excellent and trustworthy sailors—one, who was the son of a Lanun of rank, subsequently commanded the present Rajah's former yacht the Aline. Some of the captives were Dutch subjects, and some were British subjects from Singapore. In the captured pirate prahu there were found five Dutch and one Spanish ensign.
Sailing along past the delta of the Rejang, when off the pretty little village of Palo, which was hidden from their view, the pirates had observed a long canoe laden with nipah palm leaves, with a man in the stern and a woman in the bows, paddling for dear life to escape. A light canoe manned by half-a-dozen men was at once despatched in chase, and quickly overhauled the poor couple, the man crying out that he surrendered, and the woman screaming with fear. It was a pretty example of the biter bit—a neatly contrived trap. Gliding alongside to secure their apparently helpless captives, without troubling to exchange paddles for weapons, to their amazement the pirates saw an upheaval of the leaves and several armed men spring up, together with the steersman and the disguised man in the bows. This startling development took the pirates so completely by surprise that they were all speared before they could seize their weapons. The Melanaus then quickly disappeared up a creek. Their leader was the late Atoh, a young man then, who afterwards became the Government chief of Palo. He is perhaps better known to the present generation as Haji Abdul Rahman.
The following translation of a paper written by a Nakoda Amzah, one of the rescued captives, and found amongst his papers after his death, gives a good account of the voyage of this fleet, and of its destruction. He was a Kampar (Sumatra) Malay, who lived in Sarawak since his rescue. He, his grandson, and another Malay were killed in the Rejang in 1880 by a head-hunting party of Dayaks. He was noted for his courage. He had been twice before captured by pirates. In this translation the word "pirate" is substituted for Bajau, Lanun, and Balanini, which the writer uses indiscriminately, and no doubt the crews of the piratical prahus were an admixture of these tribes.