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

Bandar Kasim, in spite of warnings, was again oppressing his people in the Sadong. The Rajah had deposed him in 1848, and had appointed his brother, Abang Leman,176 in his place, but the change brought no benefit to the people, it gave them but an additional tyrant, for both were now behaving badly, and the Bandar had to be removed.

After visiting Labuan, the Rajah went to Penang for a much-needed change, and there received instructions from the Foreign Office to proceed to Siam on a diplomatic mission. He left for Bangkok in August. To quote his own words: "The mission was a dead failure, as the Siamese are as hostile and opposed to Europeans as any people can well be. I had a very trying time of it, and altogether got rid of an unpleasant and critical position without loss of national and individual credit." A short time before an American mission had also been similarly repulsed.

During the Rajah's absence, an envoy from the United States had arrived at Kuching bearing a letter from the President addressed to him as Sovereign Prince of Sarawak, and expressing a desire to enter into friendly relations. The envoy informed the Rajah by letter that having been entrusted with full powers he was ready to sign a treaty with Sarawak, and that he was to thank the Rajah "in the name of the American nation for his exertions in the suppression of piracy," and to compliment him on his noble and "humane endeavours to bring his subjects and the neighbouring tribes of Malays into a condition of civilisation." Lord Palmerston saw no objection to the Rajah entering into diplomatic relations as Rajah of Sarawak with the United States.177

In January, 1851, the Rajah, leaving Captain Brooke in charge, again left for England on account of the bad state of his health. He came home for rest and quiet, but this was denied him, and he had to sum up all his energies, and expend time and money to contend against the active and bitter hostility of his Radical opponents in England, who in spite of adverse majorities in the House of Commons and the opposition of some of the most prominent politicians in both Houses, continued their malignant persecution with great persistency both in and out of Parliament.

In 1853, the Aberdeen coalition Ministry came into power, which, like all coalitions, was feeble and lived by compromise. This Ministry agreed to give what Hume and his faction asked, and had thrice been refused by the House by large majorities,178 a commission of enquiry into the conduct of the Rajah, before which he was to be called upon to defend himself against allegations scouted by the House, the incorrectness of which could be proved by the leading statesmen of the day, including such men as the Earl of Derby, Earl Grey, Viscount Palmerston, and Lord John Russell.179 The Ministry most disingenuously kept their decision a secret from the Rajah until after he had left England, though not from Hume, who was able to send information to his coadjutors in Singapore that it was granted. They had got up an address to him, by the most unscrupulous devices, expressing disapproval of all that he had done, and urging that an enquiry might be instituted into the conduct of the Rajah by a Commission sent from England. This address was purported to have been signed by fifty-three merchants of Singapore. Afterwards, when the Commission sat in Singapore, only twenty-seven merchant firms were found to exist there, and of these twenty-two had signed an address of confidence in the Rajah. Some of those who had signed the address to Hume, and who put in an appearance before the Commission, exposed the way in which their signatures had been obtained by misrepresentations.

On April 30th, 1852, a great dinner was given to the Rajah at the London Tavern, to mark the sense entertained of the eminent services rendered by him in the interests of commerce and humanity, by his endeavours to put down the evils of piracy in the Eastern Archipelago, and by his labours to advance civilisation in that part of the world. The company, which numbered two hundred, included members of Parliament, Governors of the Bank of England, East India Company Directors, officers in the Army and Navy, and many others.

The Rajah delivered a speech, which, for truth and feeling, language and action, will never be forgotten by those who had the privilege of hearing him; … and the feeling was current that should a crisis ever arise in the fortunes of this country, he would be the man of action, who ought forthwith to be called to the councils of the nation.180

Only the opening passages of this speech can be given, made in response to the toast of his health: —

I will not pretend, gentlemen, to that species of pride which apes humility. I will not say that I am wholly unworthy of your regard, but I will tell you something of the position I hold in the East. Your approval of my conduct is no light condemnation of the conduct of those who have sought by every means, fair or unfair, to blast my reputation, even at the risk of injuring their own; who under the pretence of humanity have screened injustice, and on the plea of enquiry, have been unscrupulous enough to charge murder. It is now but a little more than five years since I was the idol of a spurious popularity; it is more than three years that I have been the object, but happily not the victim, of an unprecedented persecution, and it will afford me no light satisfaction if this night a fair and moderate estimate can be formed of my motives and conduct. Praise and blame have been lavished upon me with no sparing hand. I have been accused of every crime from murder to merchandise. I have been held up as a prodigy of perfection, and I have been cast down as a monster of iniquity. These, gentlemen, are the extremes which human folly delights in; these are the distortions which the tribunes of the people represent as Bible truths to the multitude, these the delusions which a hackneyed politician uses lightly, to wound feelings he has long outlived, and to cast a slur upon Her Majesty's servants. The evil, I fear, is inevitable, but it is no less an evil, that public morals, in such hands, should sink like water to its lowest and dirtiest level.

In replying for the Bench, the Hon. Baron Alderson said: —

I am sorry to say that in one respect I differ from Sir James Brooke and the Chairman, in that they expressed something of regret that our distinguished guest had not the approbation of all mankind. I do not think Sir James Brooke would deserve it if he had it; for I have always observed – and I believe history will confirm me – that the greatest benefactors of the human race have been the most abused in their own time, and I therefore think Sir James Brooke ought to be congratulated because he is abused.

In England, especially, it is the case that the little men who bray their philanthropic sentiments on platforms are almost always found in opposition to and decrying those men who are doing mighty deeds for the advancement and happiness of mankind. There exists in narrow minds a mean pleasure in decrying those who tower above them intellectually and morally. They do not blow themselves up to equal the ox, but they spit their poison at him in hopes of bringing him down to their level. And the unfortunate result of the weakness of party government is that the party which is in power is always, or almost always, ready to throw over a great public servant to silence the yelping of the pack that snarl about his heels. It was so with Governor Eyre, it was so with Sir Bartle Frere, it was so with General Gordon, and it was so with Sir Bampfylde Fuller. "The time will come in our country when no gentleman will serve the public, and your blackguards and your imbeciles may have a monopoly of appointments," so in indignant sorrow wrote the Rajah. Though surprised and hurt at what had been said and done, he was not disturbed, and he treated his defamers with contempt and indifference, "conscious of right motives, and firm in right action."181

The Rajah left England in April, 1853. On his arrival in Sarawak he was attacked by small-pox. There was no doctor in Kuching at the time, but he was successfully nursed through his illness by his devoted officers, both English and native, amongst the latter being Sherip Matusain, who had lately been recalled from Sekrang in disgrace, and who now became one of his doctors. Prayers for his recovery were nightly offered in the mosque, and Malay houses. Offerings for his recovery were made in the shape of alms by the Indians; and votive oblations were made in their temples by the Chinese. The Rev. A. Horsburgh, who did so much to pull him through his illness, wrote: —

The joy in Sarawak when all danger was over was very great, for all had been equally distressed, and many fervent prayers in church, mosque, and temple, were offered for his recovery.

But we will here briefly interrupt the sequence of events to give in unbroken record the sequel that happily terminated the unprecedented persecutions which the Rajah was subjected to for over five years, for the miserable fiasco of the Commission, the direct result of these persecutions, left the Rajah's defamers powerless and humiliated, and the Government in a disgraceful dilemma.

The Commission sat in Singapore during the months of September and October, 1854. It consisted of two gentlemen, Mr. C. R. Prinsep, Advocate-General at Calcutta, already afflicted with the mental malady to which he soon after succumbed, and the Hon. Humphrey B. Devereaux, of the Bengal Civil Service. At the first and second meetings, of which due notice had been given, to the surprise of the Commissioners no one appeared to support the charges contained in the address to Mr. Hume, and subpœnas had to be served on several of the subscribers to that address. As a result, sixteen witnesses were produced in support of these charges, and not one of them deposed to any acts within his own knowledge which negatived the practice of piracy by the Saribas and Sekrangs; three deposed to specific piratical acts of those tribes; and one rather established than controverted their piratical character. On the other hand, twenty-four witnesses called by the Commissioners, with Mr. J. Bondriot,182 late Resident of Sambas, Dutch Borneo (who volunteered his evidence) deposed expressly to acts of piracy on the part of these people. Traders and nakodas from Borneo, who were present in Singapore, were deterred from coming forward to give evidence by reports disseminated amongst them by the personal opponents of the Rajah that their attendance would lead to detention and inconvenience. The contention that the attacks of the Saribas and Sekrang Dayaks were merely acts of intertribal hostility was not upheld. The charge of wrongful and causeless attack and massacre wholly failed of proof, and was sufficiently negatived.183 This was the judgment of Mr. Prinseps, and so far his brother Commissioner was with him, for, after dealing with their general character, Mr. Devereaux sums up by saying that the Saribas and Sekrang were piratical, and deserved the punishment they received, and that in conflicts with such men atrocities, in the ordinary sense of the term, are not easily committed.184 These were the main points which mostly concerned the public, and upon which were based the grave accusations that it had been the pleasure of Mr. Hume and his adherents to formulate upon totally inadequate and most unreliable evidence. The other points brought by their instructions to the notice of the Commissioners were matters more between the Crown and the Rajah than of general interest to the public. Whether the position of Sir James Brooke as Rajah of Sarawak was compatible with his duties as British Consul General and Commissioner, and with his character as a British subject; was the Rajah engaged in trade? and whether the Rajah should be entrusted with a discretion to determine which tribes are piratical, and to call for the aid of her Majesty's Naval forces for the punishment of such tribes, were points upon which the Commissioners had to decide, and upon which they differed. They, however, agreed that the Rajah was not engaged in trade, and the other questions, except the involved one of the independence of Sarawak, had been solved by the Rajah's resignation of his appointments under the Crown, which was, however, only accepted late in 1855, long after he had in weariness of spirit ceased to exercise the functions of those offices.

"Upon the question of the independence of Sarawak, Mr. Prinseps found the Rajah's position to be no other than that of a vassal of the Sultan, holding indeed by a tenure very bare, and easy to be thrown off altogether." Mr. Devereaux could give no definite opinion; but it was a question to be submitted only to the highest legal authorities, and the Rajah justly protested against the Commissioners dealing with it; and it is a question that has long since been settled.

One result of this senseless outcry in England against the Rajah was that no help was thenceforth accorded him by the fleet in the China and Straits waters. Were an insurrection to take place; were the Sekrangs and Saribas to send round the calling-out spear and muster their clans, not a marine, not a gun would have been afforded him by her Majesty's Government for his protection, and such was the case during the Chinese insurrection.

An evidence of the confidence felt after the quelling of the pirates was the increase in trade, the tonnage of merchant vessels in 1852 having risen to 25,000 tons, whereas in 1842 the whole trade was carried on by a few native prahus. Traders were secure along the coast, and, as was testified to before the Commission, the people of Sambas and Pontianak blessed the Rajah for the protection he had given them against the depredations of the piratical Dayaks; and those of Muka and Oya were thankful that he had settled near them – a little later they had more reason to be thankful, when he relieved them of their oppressive rulers. The Singapore Free Press in February, 1850, said: —

A few, a very few years ago, no European merchant vessels ventured on the north-west coast of Borneo; now they are numerous and safe. Formerly shipwrecked crews were attacked, robbed, and enslaved; now they are protected, fed, and forwarded to a place of safety. The native trade now passes with careless indifference over the same track between Marudu and Singapore where, but a little while ago, it was liable to the peril of capture; the crews of hundreds of prahus are no longer exposed to the loss of life and the loss of property. The recent successful proceedings on the coast of Borneo have been followed by the submission of the pirate hordes of Saribas and Sekrang.

So late as June, 1877, when the Rajah had long been dead, Mr. Gladstone in addressing the House on the question of Turkey and Bulgarian atrocities, and probably as a comparison, said, "I cannot recollect a more shameful proceeding on the part of any country than the slaughter of the Dayaks by Her Majesty's forces and by Sir James Brooke."

Earl Grey and Admiral Farquhar published indignant replies. Mr. Bailie-Cochrane185 took Mr. Gladstone to task in the House, whereupon the latter shuffled out of what he had said with less than his usual ingenuity, by saying that he never meant to blame the Rajah personally, but only the Government. The following is from Earl Grey's reply: —

The additional information respecting him which I have since gained has only tended to confirm the impression I then received that his character was a truly noble one, and I am sanguine enough to believe that it would be regarded in the same light by yourself if you would be induced to read the letters he addressed to his mother in the early part of his career as Rajah of Sarawak. These, to my mind, most beautiful letters are to be found in the very interesting life of Sir James Brooke published some months ago by Miss Jacob. They were written while the events they describe were going on, to a mother whom he passionately loved, obviously without the remotest idea that they would ever be published, and contain an account, bearing the clearest impress of truth and sincerity of all that he did, and of the feelings and motives by which he was guided. We find in them a touching record of his pity for the oppressed Dayaks,186 of his righteous indignation against the oppressors, of his noble self-devotion, and of his fixed determination to hazard, and if necessary to sacrifice for their welfare, not only the whole of his moderate fortune, but ease, health, and life itself, while he steadily refused to listen to all attempts that were made to induce him to use the position he had acquired for his own personal advantage.

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."

CHAPTER V

RENTAP

With this chapter commences the history of the life of the present Rajah, in itself an epitome of the history of the raj, who in 1852, at the age of twenty-three, obtained two years' leave of absence to try his fortunes in Borneo at the invitation of his uncle the Rajah. He arrived at Kuching on July 21, 1852, at the commencement of a new era in the history of Sarawak. Hitherto the raj extended only as far as the Samarahan river, and within this little state order had been established and peace reigned. Without, it had been freed from its enemies, the result being an increasing trade which brought prosperity. But the Rajah could not leave incomplete the work that he had undertaken and begun, and these benefits had to be more fully extended to the neighbouring districts, which were shortly to be added to the raj. This could be done only by first reducing to order the turbulent and restless Sea-Dayaks and Malays who inhabited these districts. Sarawak, too, had now been left to fight its own battles alone, and to surmount the additional troubles that had been thrown across its path by the blind and weak policy of the British Government that should have been its protector. In the severe trials that followed, and which had to be faced unhelped, the Rajah found that assistance which he so much needed in the able and devoted support of his nephews, the Tuan Besar, and, more notably, the Tuan Muda, for so the present Rajah was entitled by the datus on his arrival.187 On the expiration of his leave the Tuan Muda finally quitted the Navy, and Sarawak became the scene of his life-work; he was to become the Rajah's right-hand man, and, a few years later, his trusted deputy.

Charles Anthoni Johnson, the Tuan Muda, was the second son of the Rev. Francis Charles Johnson, and was born on June 3, 1829, at Berrow Vicarage, near Burnham, Somersetshire. Educated in Crewkerne Grammar School for a few years only, he was withdrawn at the age of a little over twelve, and entered the Navy on January 18, 1842, as a volunteer of the first class, under his uncle, Commander Willes Johnson of the sloop Wolverine. He served on this ship until June, 1844, gaining two steps as midshipman in that year, when he was transferred to the Dido, Captain the Hon. Henry Keppel. He rejoined the Wolverine, serving under Commander John Dalrymple Hay,188 until his transfer to the Mæander, Captain the Hon. H. Keppel, in November, 1847, as sub-lieutenant. He joined the St. Vincent in 1848, and in June the next year was promoted to be senior mate of the Terrible. He became lieutenant in 1852. He served mostly on the China station; and the only active service he saw was with Keppel's expedition and Sir Thomas Cochrane's squadron in Borneo waters, as we have already recorded.

The Tuan Muda was appointed to Lundu in January, 1853, but he had not been there long before news arrived of the death of Mr. Lee, the Resident at Lingga. The circumstances were these: Ever since the severe lesson taught the Saribas and Sekrangs in 1849, the piratical tribes had been divided into two parties: one that was content to submit to the Government of Sarawak, and abandon its former lawless practices, and the other, consisting of the irreconcilables, the wild and fiery bloods, who loved slaughter and rapine above everything, and who could not be prevailed upon to beat their spears into ploughshares. At their head stood a peculiarly daring and turbulent Dayak chief called Rentap; and these had retreated farther up the country to the head-waters of the Saribas. There Rentap had established a strong stockade on Sadok, a mountain ridge, up the Sungei (River) Lang, which was regarded as an impregnable fastness, for access could not be obtained to it by boat, on account of the rapids, and the country that would have to be traversed by an expedition was covered with dense jungles, and broken up by rugged limestone chains of hills.

The Sekrang pirates could no longer shoot down to the sea in their war prahus, for the forts of Sekrang and Lingga commanded the river, consequently they exerted their mischievous energies in attacking the peaceful Dayaks in their districts, and they were especially irate against those of their own tribe who had submitted to the white man's rule.

Sekrang station under the able management of Mr. Brereton had made great advances, and around the fort a Malay town had sprung up, and there Chinese traders had also established themselves. Mr. Brereton was ably supported by two of the best and most capable Malay chiefs, Pangiran Matali,189 a Bruni of rank, and Abang Aing,190 a Matu Melanau, who had long been settled in the Batang Lupar with his father the Laksamana Menudin, and who had the good fortune to have for a helpmate an upright and determined woman, Dayang Kota; she was strong in council, and so trustworthy that when Mr. Brereton and the chiefs were away she was often left in charge of the fort.

The fort at Lingga had been built in 1852 to protect that river against marauding bands of Saribas, and had been placed in charge of Mr. Alan Lee.

Brereton and Lee were both men of independent means, who had joined the Rajah to assist him in his great work, and who never drew a penny from the Sarawak Government. The former was hot and impetuous; both were men of noble and generous natures.

The position of Mr. Lee at Lingga was fairly safe. He had been for a short time coadjutor with Brereton at Sekrang; at Lingga he had plenty of Malays, and only friendly Dayaks, the Balaus, about him. But Mr. Brereton was in a more dangerous position, a single Englishman among many thousand natives but partially reclaimed in hardly five years, and all passionately attached to their ancestral custom of head-hunting. It is true he had about him a number of Malays, and on an emergency might call in the assistance of those Dayaks of the Sekrang tribe who professed allegiance, but many of these were waverers, and on a few only could any reliance be placed.

Early in 1853, reports reached Brereton that Rentap, at the head of a war party, was on his way down the river to attack his fort, and force an opening to the sea, so that again he might pursue his piratical expeditions along the coast; and Brereton sent a message to Lee at Lingga to come to his assistance.

The request was at once complied with, and, thinking the case urgent, Lee hurried up the river with a scratch party, insufficiently armed; but he left orders that a large force was to follow with all possible speed.