A little later the Rajah wrote to his nephew, Captain Brooke: ‘I have sometimes thought that since the earlier days the bonds of sympathy between the native and European have been slacker.’ These words reflected the thoughts which had arisen in my own mind during the visit I paid to Sarawak in 1857. It was not so much that there was any outward sign of the mutual sympathy being less, but there was little of that old familiar intercourse which undoubtedly produced and fostered it. And this, ungallant as the opinion may seem, I put down to the presence of the ladies. After dinner they retired to the drawing-room, and we could hear music and singing going on, and most of the gentlemen were eager to join them. The native chiefs, and others who had continued their evening visits, soon became aware of this, and gradually they frequented Government House less and less, and finally ceased going except when business called them there. Under these conditions the same intimate friendship could not continue. I have been so long absent from Sarawak that I know but little of the present state of affairs there, but I fear that the former easy intercourse was never wholly re-established, and that those pleasant evenings with the best class of natives are things of the distant past, in fact, of the days of the old Rajah.
For these and many other reasons I think that gentlemen who govern native states should not marry, or if an exception be made in favour of the chief, certainly his subordinates, who are employed in out-stations where natives abound, should not be married. And this rule might well be applied to the officers sent to our North-Western frontier in India. Marriage immediately separates the governors from the governed. Ladies as a rule cannot be brought to understand that the natives can in any case be considered as equals, and are apt to despise them accordingly. With such ideas, how can bonds of sympathy exist between the rulers and the ruled?
At that time, 1857, the Sago Rivers, north-east of the Rejang, were very much disturbed. Though there were some extenuating circumstances, the action of Sarawak was not altogether free from blame. A quarrel had arisen between two native chiefs, one the governor of the district of Muka Pangeran Nipa, and the other his cousin, Pangeran Matusin. The first act of the tragedy was that the latter dashed into the house of the former and murdered him and eleven of his women and children. The second was the driving out of Matusin and the slaughter of thirty-five of his friends and relations. Sarawak, then administered by the Rajah’s nephew, unfortunately sided with Matusin, and interfered with arms in her hands within the Sultan’s territory.
Before, however, these latter acts occurred, the Rajah had been to Brunei to try and induce the Sultan to let him settle matters in the Sago Rivers,[10] and although no formal documents were executed he was requested to see that right was done, but the Sultan would have nothing to do with that man of violence, Matusin. The Rajah went to Muka, and a period of calm followed this visit, but nothing was settled on a permanent basis.
Sir James now decided to proceed to England, as many important affairs required his presence there. On his arrival he found everyone disposed to treat him with distinction, and Lords Clarendon and Palmerston were especially cordial. They even offered a Protectorate, all that was really wanted to ensure the stability of Sarawak and its future progress. But that unfortunate Commission had made the Rajah suspicious of Ministers. He thought they might grant a Protectorate, and then thoroughly neglect Borneo affairs. This was, no doubt, an error, as under the Protectorate of England, Sarawak has progressed to its present prosperous state without needing, or being required to submit to, the slightest interference on the part of Her Majesty’s Government. The Rajah thought, however, that if England had a monetary interest in Sarawak she would be more apt to look after the nascent State. He therefore asked that they should repay him the money he had expended in bringing the country to its present condition. Another reason for this request was that after the Chinese insurrection he had been compelled to borrow £5000 from the Borneo Company, and he wished to repay it. Every penny of his own fortune had been spent, and his only assured income was the pension of £70 which had been granted to him on account of the wound received in Burmah. But this does not alter my opinion that he should have accepted the Protectorate without further question. The Government next offered to establish a naval station in one of the ports of Sarawak; why this was not accepted I never heard.
On February 21, 1858, Sir James Brooke went to a Drawing-Room, and Her Majesty spoke to him most graciously, and the Prince Consort shook him cordially by the hand; indeed, the Royal Family ever showed the greatest interest in his career; and his reception at the Prime Minister’s greatly pleased him.
Then came a change of Ministry, as Lord Palmerston had been defeated on the Conspiracy Bill, and the Rajah instantly felt a difference in the tone adopted towards him by the Government. Lord Derby cared little for Borneo, though his son, then Lord Stanley, showed a very appreciative interest in Sarawak.
The Rajah’s friends thought that by continually agitating, by dinners, meetings, and deputations, they might influence the Government, and they persuaded him to join in the movement, but upon a temperament so nervous as the Rajah’s this wrought infinite mischief. His nephews also were wounding his feelings by writing from Sarawak that the Rajah desired to ‘sell Sarawak into bondage.’ No wonder he felt dreadfully ‘hurt and humiliated,’ and cried out that ‘he was weary, weary of heart, without faith, without hope in man’s honesty.’
On the 21st October 1858, after making a brief speech in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, he says, ‘I felt a creeping movement come over me. I soon knew what it was, and walked with Fairbairn[11] to the doctor’s. Life, I thought, was gone, and I rejoiced in the hope that my death would do for Sarawak what my life had not been able to effect.’ Thus the Rajah described his first attack of paralysis. This closed his active participation in the movement, though his friends did all they could, and a very strong effort was made to interest the commercial classes and induce the Government to do something in support of his position in Borneo.
As soon as the Rajah could be moved with safety, he went to his cottage at Godstone to rest, but with little result, as his friends were then negotiating with the English Government respecting Sarawak. His views on the subject were quite clear and he was now strongly in favour of a Protectorate. Many wished the Government to take the country over as a Crown colony, but that would have proved an expensive failure, as the people were not sufficiently advanced to bear the necessary taxation.