ATTACK ON S. USMAN'S STRONGHOLD.
The Commission had done no serious harm with his own loyal people. They heard with bewilderment that the man on whom their prosperity, and indeed their security, depended, had been maligned in England, and was to be tried as a malefactor in Singapore, and their dread was lest he should be taken from their head, or should throw up his task in disgust, and the country be allowed to relapse into oppression and anarchy; for so surely as the Rajah left, would the pangirans return and resume their blood-sucking operations on one side, and on the other the pirates recover from their humiliation and recommence their depredations, and so they would perish between the upper and nether millstone.
The Ministry made no attempt to remove the harmful impressions caused by the false step they had so weakly been induced to take; they but confirmed these by making no amende, and by withdrawing all support, and as the sequel will show, the Commission paved the way for the rebellion of the Chinese, and for the outbreak of disaffected Malays and other natives, aided and incited by intriguing Brunis, which were to follow, and which cost the lives of many Europeans, and great numbers of Chinese and natives, and nearly resulted in the extinction of the raj. With justice the Rajah wrote: "It is a sad thing to say, but true as sad, that England has been the worst opponent of the progress of Sarawak, and is now the worst enemy of her liberty."
[108]. The Governor-General of Netherlands East Indies in a rescript, dated January 23, 1846, acknowledged that the exertions during the past twenty-five years effectually to suppress piracy on the coasts of Borneo had not been successful for want of combination, and for having been limited to the western coast.
[109]. A Collection of Voyages, 1729.
[110]. Sulu was the principal market for the disposal of captives and plunder.
[111]. A son of Captain Francis Light, who founded Penang in 1786, was named Lanoon, he having been born on the island at the time it was being blockaded by Lanun pirates.
[112]. Dayak war-boats, some having as many as 75 to the crew.
[113]. Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido, 1847.