A SEA-DAYAK HOUSE OR VILLAGE.

CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE FIRST STAGE

THE RAJAH'S TOMB.

We are drawing near to the close of the first stage in the History of Sarawak. It had opened with great hopes. To his mother the Rajah had written in 1841: "I trust there may be marked out for me a more useful existence, that will enable me to lay my head on my pillow and say that I have done something to better the condition of my kind, and to deserve their applause," and again, "I hope that thousands will be benefited when I am mouldering in dust," and these hopes have been fulfilled. But the last period of the Rajah's life was clouded with sorrow, disappointment, and pecuniary anxieties.

He had practically given up the government in 1863, though he reigned for five years longer, and could make his will felt when need be. His health had broken down, and he wrote on May 29, 1863: "I cannot stand the climate and work," and in that year he left Sarawak for good, having installed his nephew, the Tuan Muda, as administrator. He was then only sixty, but for over twenty years his life had been full of anxiety, and had been a continual struggle against adversities, the most serious caused by the "malignant and persevering persecutions"[[287]] of his own countrymen, to whom he had turned for a little sympathy and a little help, which would have cost England nothing. In his policy and his actions he had been guided by no personal ambition; the great desire of his heart had been throughout the extension of British influence in the Far East, the improvement of trade, the suppression of piracy, the horrors of which he had witnessed, and the amelioration of the lot of the oppressed and suffering natives, whom he had come to love and esteem for their many good qualities.

With regard to the other countries included in the general policy of the Rajah, this book has little to do. It suffices to note that had that policy not been discredited, Siam,[[288]] the Sulu archipelago, the whole of New Guinea, and a greater part of Borneo might now have been under British influence. To the Rajah's unaided efforts, frowned upon at home, England owes it that Sarawak, Bruni, and Labuan are not now Dutch Residencies, and North Borneo, through conquest from the Spaniards, an American colony.

By his enterprise Sarawak, weakened by civil war and oppression, was converted into an independent and cogent State, and became a check upon any further advance of the Dutch northwards; and their strong diplomatic objections to the Rajah's presence in Sarawak shows what they had in view. Moreover, the treaty he effected with the Sultan of Bruni in 1847 effectually prevented any settlements other than of an English character being established in northern Borneo.

From southern Borneo England had retired in favour of the Dutch, and, previous to this, after the disaster of Balambangan, and its withdrawal from Bruni, had ceased to take any further interest in northern Borneo, nor was any attempt made to re-establish its prestige there, or to suppress piracy, even after Singapore had been founded in 1819. As usual, England had to wait for a man of action and resolution, and twenty years afterwards, though, fortunately, when not too late, he appeared in the person of the late Rajah. Such a man also was Sir Stamford Raffles, who saved Singapore and the Malay peninsula to England. It is almost a parallel case.