A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908

by S. Baring-Gould; C. A. Bampfylde

On May 30, 1885, the old Sultan Mumin departed this life, at the venerable age of over one hundred years, and the Pangiran Temanggong Hasim, reputed son of the late Sultan Omar Ali,[^[315]] the predecessor of Sultan Mumin, was elevated to the throne. Sultan Hasim, who was past middle age when he succeeded, was a shrewd man, though hard and vindictive. His antecedents had not been exemplary, but hopes were entertained that, being a man of strength of mind and of advanced ideas, an improvement would be effected in the administration of Bruni, which would lead to the establishment of good order and bring the place and State out of absolute decay into comparative prosperity, but these hopes, strong man as he was, he was powerless to fulfil.

In order to appreciate much that occurred during the reign of Sultan Hasim it is necessary to understand the conditions under which he became Sultan, and the effect that these conditions had upon his power and position.

His predecessor, Mumin, had an only son, the Pangiran Muda Muhammad Tejudin, a semi-imbecile, nicknamed Binjai, literally the son of misfortune, signifying an idiot. Much as Sultan Mumin would have liked to have proclaimed his son heir to the throne, it was quite impossible for him to do so in opposition to the natural objections of the nobles, upheld, as these were, by the laws of Bruni, which preclude the accession of any prince afflicted with mental or bodily infirmity. The succession would therefore fall upon either of the Sultan's nephews, the Pangiran Bandahara, or the Pangiran di Gadong, and both claimed it. These two powerful princes and wazirs, with their feudal and official territorial rights, and the many nobles and chiefs who owed them allegiance, represented the most powerful factions in the country, and the accession of either to the throne would have plunged the country into bloodshed. To avert this, the British Government persuaded Sultan Mumin, but not without bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, to nominate the Pangiran Temanggong Hasim, the senior wazir, as his successor, and to appoint him Regent, the old Sultan being too feeble-minded to govern.

Hasim's elevation to the throne gave profound offence to the Pangirans Bandahara and di Gadong, and to the majority of the people, who believed the story of his mean birth, and that he had no just title to the rank he held as a prince of blood royal. That his accession was not disputed was due only to its implied support of the British Government, though that support would probably have failed him had he been forced to fall back upon it. The Bandahara and di Gadong, though they retained their offices, for many years refused him their support, and would neither attend his Council nor maintain any kind of relation with him, notwithstanding the fact that they were his two principal Ministers of State; and he was powerless to force them to do so, or to deprive them of their offices.

Moreover, his predecessor had left him in sore straits for the means necessary for the support of his government, and even of his household. None of the late Sultan's property came to him, and the whole of the crown-lands in Bruni territory had been illegally granted to others, and these, though his rightful appurtenances, he had no power to recover.

Sultan Hasim thus came to the throne practically shorn of everything that goes to the support of a crown. Abandoned by his ministers, and the loyalty of his people denied him, deprived of his revenues, and with but a few followers, there was nothing left him but the sovereign rights, shadowy in nature since he had not the means fully to exert them. A pathetic picture; but in spite of his faults it says much for his personal ability and strength of character that he was able, not only to maintain his position, but gradually to gain sufficient power to exert his authority, and to make his will felt. It must not be overlooked that many of his worst acts were the direct outcome of his necessitous condition, and the constant intriguing against him by his own ministers.

Owing to lack of power to chastise the rebels, though not of will, Limbang had been let alone by the Sultan, and for some time there were no aggressive acts committed by either side, but in November, 1885, the people of Limbang were again in open rebellion and had killed two more Bruni subjects. The Sultan thereupon sent the Rajah two pressing messages asking him to visit Bruni, and this the Rajah did. The Sultan laid the state of affairs before him, and declared that he saw no hope of peace unless the Rajah would consent to attack the Limbang, and reduce the people to order for him. Limbang was sufficiently near to be a menace to the capital. Twice it had been threatened by them, and the suburbs raided. The third time might be more disastrous. The town might fall into their hands.

The Rajah, however, declined to interfere. The Limbang people were at peace with Sarawak, and numbers of his subjects were working produce in that river, and met with friendliness there. To reduce these people to submission, and then to hand them over to oppression, after having deprived them of the power to protect themselves, was what the Rajah would never consent to do. That something must be done, and done at once, he felt, but the question of what should be done was for the representative of her Majesty's Government to decide.

As we have before pointed out, in the Sultanate of Bruni, there are various rights claimed. The Sultan has his rights, some districts revert to the holders of certain offices, and others are under the hereditary feudal rule of the pangirans. Limbang pertained to this last category. The Sultan was sovereign, but his sovereign rights consisted in this alone, namely, to send his agents into the country and squeeze it. The feudal lords were the pangirans, and as they could not oppress the exasperated and revolted people any more, they were ready to surrender their rights to the Rajah, but could not do this without the Sultan's confirmation and seal. What the Sultan wanted was that the Rajah should crush the rebellion, so that he might work his vengeance on the Limbang people, and turn the screw on them till nothing more could be extracted from them. This the Rajah perfectly understood, and he declined to do the dirty work for the Sultan. The refusal of assistance by the Rajah produced a coolness on the part of the Sultan. He would not, however, receive this refusal as final, and he repeated his request to the Rajah in an altered form; he requested him to place the gunboat Aline with a strong force of Sarawak Dayaks, also a large sum of money, at his (the Sultan's) disposal, for the purpose of enabling him to reduce the Limbang people under his own officers, if the Rajah himself would not head the expedition.

The Rajah's refusal aroused an angry feeling in the breast of Hasim, and this was fanned to bitter hostility, when the Consul-General informed him and the Limbang people simultaneously, in reply to a petition of the latter that they might be placed under the rule of white men, that her Majesty's Government was prepared to consent to the transfer of Limbang to Sarawak. The Sultan's hostile attitude was not shared by his ministers, or by the Bruni people generally, or even by the hereditary owners or rulers of the Limbang. These latter, as has been shown, unable to extract more taxes from the people, hoped to receive from the Sarawak Government an annual stipulated income in lieu of precarious and uncertain exactions. They accordingly begged the Rajah to take over the river. But the Sultan refused to consent, and his refusal was probably actuated even then by motives other than those of revenge and resentment as the sequel will show.