No one now cares for the Commission sent to inquire into the position and conduct of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, and Commissioner and Consul-General in Borneo; but as its results were so disastrous I must devote a few pages to it.
As I have before mentioned—and here I am obliged to repeat some observations I have previously made—when Sir James Brooke found that his agent in England, Mr Wise, was trying to involve him in schemes which he considered doubtful, he endeavoured to check him, and used strong language about his projects, looking upon them as designs to defraud the public by false representations. Mr Wise accidentally came to know the energetic expressions used by his employer, and decided to have his revenge, but he held his hand until the right moment had arrived. He still continued to press Sir James to join his gigantic companies, but failed in his attempts. Other events occurred which excited him still more, such as the Rajah’s handing over to the British Government, instead of directly to himself, the grant of the coal seams in certain portions of the Sultan’s dominions which Sir James had received whilst Her Majesty’s Agent. At length, when his employer called upon him to produce his accounts, as a very large balance was due to him, Mr Wise began to denounce him publicly. The Farquhar expedition furnished him with the opportunity, and he now posed as a humanitarian, and furnished certain members of the press with garbled information. We may imagine how unscrupulous he was when Lord Clarendon stated, ‘It had been detected in the Foreign Office that Mr Wise’s “Papers printed for use in the Government Offices” could not be relied on, and that some were “simple forgeries.”’
Mr Wise, however, managed, as I have said, to persuade Mr Joseph Hume to enter into his projects, who found an ally in Mr Cobden, and they both commenced a campaign in the House of Commons against the Rajah. This continued until the Coalition Ministry, under Lord Aberdeen, came into power in 1853. To secure the Parliamentary support of the Free Trade party, Lord Aberdeen weakly consented to issue a Commission on the lines suggested by Mr Hume, Sir James’s vindictive adversary.
The Commission might have been issued with the concurrence of both parties, as Sir James was anxious for a full inquiry; but the Government, whilst informing Mr Hume of their intention to accede to his demand, thought it becoming to keep Sir James ignorant of it, and he found it out by accident.
Forty-five years have passed since this event occurred, and yet I cannot write of it without a flush of indignation. Mr Gladstone made this observation: ‘His (Sir James’s) language respecting Mr Hume and Mr Cobden, two men of the very highest integrity ... is for the most part quite unjustifiable.’ Mr Hume’s integrity, by his own confession, was not above suspicion, and Mr Cobden may be judged by the following extract: ‘Sir James Brooke seized on a territory as large as Yorkshire, and then drove out the natives, and subsequently sent for our fleet and men to massacre them.’ The insolence and ignorance displayed in the latter statement, as I have elsewhere observed, are about equal.
Grant and I soon followed the Rajah to Singapore, and found the Commission sitting. It was composed of Mr Prinsep and Mr Devereux, the former suffering from a malady which was beginning to show itself at intervals, and quite incapable of conducting the inquiry with dignity; the latter everything which could be desired—a man of marked ability, impartial and painstaking.
When the Commission opened its sittings, only two complainants came forward—the ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Labuan, and an editor of a newspaper. Both of these were informed that their cases were beyond the scope of the Commission. As, however, above fifty inhabitants of Singapore had signed an address to Mr Hume, supporting his demand for an inquiry into the character of the tribes of Seribas and Sakarang, the Commissioners naturally thought that they would be prepared with some evidence of their assertion that these tribes were not piratical, and that they had been massacred under false pretences; but all the memorialists who were called by the Commissioners denied having any knowledge on the subject, and many had signed under the impression that they were aiding the cause of Sir James Brooke. The Commissioners waited day after day for hostile witnesses, but none came.
While we were all waiting for that testimony which was not forthcoming, a gentleman who was sitting next me said, ‘I should like to give evidence.’ I mentioned his wish to the Commissioners. He was then called forward, and stated that his name was Boudriot; that he was in the Civil Service of the Dutch Government; that he had resided four and a half years in Borneo. He knew of the Seribas and Sakarang Dyaks; he had always known them as pirates, killing and murdering all along the coast. They came down in large, armed boats, holding each a crew of from eighty to ninety, killing the men they met and carrying off the women and children as slaves. In one excursion they killed about four hundred men. This happened in the Dutch possessions. They had ravaged the Dutch settlements; probably the recorded instances would number one hundred. ‘As every one in Borneo knows them (as pirates), I am surprised that anyone should question their existence.’
When it is remembered that this evidence was given unsolicited by a high and experienced Dutch official, who, on his way home on furlough, happened to be passing through Singapore, and that the Netherlands Government had shown itself exceedingly jealous of Sir James Brooke’s position in Borneo, no further evidence would seem to have been required. Mr Boudriot’s coming forward to bear testimony in favour of a political opponent was as honourable to the Dutch official as to his Government, which he knew would not object to his testifying in favour of the truth.
The witnesses called by the hostile memorialists came to curse, but remained to bless. Reluctant as they were to tell all they knew, enough was dragged out of them to show the true character of the Seribas and Sakarang Dyaks. One was the dismissed Lieutenant-Governor of Labuan, the second a man of German extraction, who had lived on Sir James Brooke’s bounty for many years, and the third the banished Patingi of Sarawak; but he showed no animus against Sir James Brooke. In point of fact, they did not prove hostile witnesses, as the testimony of the first two, apart from the feeling displayed, was quite satisfactory. Mr Devereux and Mr Prinsep observe in their reports that the memorialists or their agent did what they could to prevent the native witnesses from appearing, but enough came forward to prove to both Commissioners the piratical character of these Dyaks, and Mr Devereux pointedly remarks that no undue severity was exercised.