RAJAH BROOKE.*
Miss JACOB must have been met by a somewhat difficult problem on the threshold of her work. The story she had to tell is on one side the most romantic, on the other, perhaps, the most dreary of our time. Its hero is a figure like one of Charlemagne's paladins, Or Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains, when he is sailing the seas and ruling wild tribes ; an angry, querulous, and slightly unreasonable gentleman, when he is struggling for recognition and aid at home with puzzled Cabinet Ministers and cautious men of business. And we own it does seem to us that she has scarcely solved herproblem rightly, and that it would have been well to have made shorter work in these volumes with the dreary side. No doubt a question of high political and constitutional interest is raised by Brooke's career ; and for a certain limited class of readers, it is well that all the difficulties and hesitations of lawyers and statesmen, in puzzling out the proper attitude of the British Government towards an English subject—who is also at the same time an independent ruler of one province, and tributary of a foreign Sovereign in re- spect of others—should be fully set out and considered, but not, we submit, in a popular biography. Now, what Miss Jacob has done is to give long extracts from the Rajah's journals and letters, setting out his views of his own position, and of the duty of England towards him as he saw it, again and again, and from the despatches and minutes of the various statesmen and officials who had from time to time to consider the question in its different bearings. And we cannot but fear that this part of the book may prove too heavy for the average reader, and so that the brave story may spread less far, and strike less deeply, than we should have desired. But having said so much, we have no farther fault to find. Miss Jacob tells us she has aimed as far as possible at making the book an autobiography, and she has used her materials excellently, on the whole, allowing the Rajah to paint 'his own portrait, and supplying the side-lights and background with the skill of a practised writer, and the tact of a high-bred lady.
This skill and tact are nowhere more apparent than in the opening of the book. The temptation to linger over reminiscences of schoolfellows, and stories of doubtful value prophetic of future distinction, which get most of their colour from the subsequent knowledge of the narrators, is successfully resisted. In a dozen pages we get to the turning-point in Brooke's career, his first voyage in the China seas ; and yet we have as clear an idea of the daring, affectionate, clever boy, who ran away from the school he was so fond of because his friend had left and gone to sea, and whose wild ways' were a sore trial to tutors—of the dashing young officer mentioned for gallantry in despatches, commanding a native cavalry corps in the first Burmese war, and invalided for
• The MO of Sarawak: on docount of Sir J. firooke, 'C.O.D., LL.D. By Gertrude L. Jacob. London; Macmillan and Co.
a desperate wound—as though half a volume had been spent over it. He recovered very slowly from this wound, the bullet not being extracted till 1829, when his furlough was just expiring, and his commission would be forfeited unless he rejoined by a certain day. He sailed in the 'Castle Huntley,' East Indiaman, which made a bad voyage, and landed him at Madras with only twelve days to reach his regiment in Bengal, and, finding it impossible to be in time, he resigned his commission, and went on to China and home in the same vesaeL "I toss my cap into the air," he writes to his sister, "my commission into the sea, and bid fare- well to John Company and all his evil ways." (p. 19.) They touch at Penang and other places in the Archipelago, and Brooke's imagination is on fire with all he sees. "What a field for enterprise and adventure ! but not for me, for we sail on, and heed not the murmurs of ungratified curiosity." However, before he had reached home the idea of returning some day in a vessel of his own had shaped itself in his mind, and never gave him rest till it was realised. This could not be done for some years, his father, a retired Indian civil servant, being averse to any mercantile specu- lation, for which he knew that his son was not fitted. At last, in 1834, he so far gave way as to enable James to become part owner of a small brig and her miscellaneous cargo, in which he made a voyage to China, lost all his venture, sold his ship, and quarrelled with his partner, but worked hard and gained knowledge and experience, which served him well when his time came. His resolve was only confirmed by this failure, but it put an end to the prospect of carrying out any fresh ventures during his father's life, and the next year or two were spent at home, in the temper expressed to his friend Cruikshank in the words, "I envy you. I envy everybody who has anything to do that keeps gloom out of the head and the devil out of the heart." (p. 57.) The probation-time, with all its broodings and heart-searchings, ceased when in the spring of 1836, at his father's death, he be- came owner of 130,000, and free to follow his star. Within a few weeks he was owner of the Royalist,' a schooner yacht of 142 tons, in which, after a year's preliminary cruise in the Medi- terranean, he started for the Eastern Archipelago in December, 1838, bent, as he writes in his farewell letter, on "doing some- thing to add to the amount of good and happiness in the world, especially in a way suited to my wild habits, wild education, and ardent love for an undue degree of personal freedom." "I can truly say that I have no object of personal ambition, no craving for personal reward ; these things sometimes attend on worthy deeds or bold enterprises, but they are, at the best, but conse- quences, not principal objects." (I., p. 69.) That he was a little self-deceived in this we think comes out very clearly. He was an ambitious man, if ever there was one, but his ambition was of a noble type. He had weighed carefully what he intended, and the chances of success, before he started, and had satisfied himself that "territorial possession" is "the best, if not the only means by which to acquire a direct and powerful influence in the Archi- pelago; but any government instituted for the purpose must be directed to the advancement of native interests and to the deve- lopment of native resources, rather than by a flood of European colonisation." (L, p. 75.) In August the little 'Royalist' dropped anchor at Singapore, and while refitting and making some changes in his crew, Brooke heard that one Muda Hassim, the Rajah of Sarawak, liked the English, hated the Dutch, and had lately rescued and sent home a shipwrecked crew of Englishmen. Sending on presents of sweet- meats and toys for his children, and red cloth and nankeen for Muda Hassim himself, Brooke followed, feeling his way cautiously in the ' Royalist ' amid Manun pirate fleets and dangerous shoals, until on the 15th of August he was lying off Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, twenty miles up a hitherto unexplored river, and ex- changing salutes with the Rajah. From this time he made his head-quarters at Sarawak, running away in the 'Royalist' occa- sionally for flying visits to other places on the coast of Borneo. He soon became confidential adviser to Muda Hassim, who had been for three years at war with rebel tribes. At the end of 1840 he consented to take the field for the Rajah with his small band of Englishmen, and in December brought the four-years war to an
end, forcing all the rebel chiefs to lay down their arms, and—a harder matter—persuading Muda Hassim to accept their sub- mission without the usual confiscations and executions. As an inducement to him to remain in the country, Muda Hassim had promised to transfer to him the government of Sarawak, and in September, 1841, the transfer was formally made, not without considerable pressure, and Brooke's reign began, though the formal ratification from the Sultan of Borneo did not arrive till a year later. And now at last he is content, and can write home, "As for the demon Time, I know not how he flies. Day succeeds day, month month, and I have no ennui,—none of that longing to be doing something, and the aversion to be employed on trifles." (I., p. 180.) Six years followed of steady work and internal organisation and development, and rapid and well-planned strokes at the pirate tribes who haunted the coast and neighbouring Sakarran and Sare- bus rivers. The result has rarely been surpassed, for the man proved himself a born ruler, sagacious, daring, and patient. "All about me would plunge forward, and cause the shedding of blood, and innocent blood. Patience, patience, then, patience !" He has to impress on his followers that good government will surely, but slowly, win confidence ; it must be made to fit like clothes, and will impress its stamp on the people. But the evils of bad government do not cease with it ; its subjects, "like a distrustful dog, snap and skulk away, long after they are blessed with a kind master."
The first and crucial reform measure was the absolute and stern prohibition of intertribal wars—the curse of Borneo—in all the Sarawak territory ; the second, a simple code, founded on the old Bornean laws, which was published at once, and adminis- tered in open Courts at Kuching, in which native officers sat as Judges, under the presidency of the Rajah himself. Next, trade was encouraged, as far as the small means at Brooke's disposal allowed, and settlers flocked in from all sides to Sarawak as to a city of refuge, until in the summer of 1846, when the Admiral of the station, Sir T. Cochrane, visited Kuching to inspect and report home, the population of Kuching had risen from 1,500 to upwards of 12,000, mud huts had been replaced by handsome houses, life and property were safe, the people lightly taxed, contented, and loyal, while peace reigned in all her borders.
Brooke visited England in 1847, and was received with accla- mation by the whole country. He went to Windsor and was knighted, and returned as Consul-General of Borneo, Commis- sioner of Trade, and Governor of the new settlement of Labuan, founded at his suggestion. But now, when his fortunes seemed secure, came six years of adversity. Fierce attacks commenced in Parliament on him and his Government. Joseph Hume and Cobden became the tools of discharged agents and jealous traders, and, in spite of refutation after refutation, and the unanimous witness of every naval officer who had been employed on the station, memorialised one weak Government after another, until they had obtained a Commission of Inquiry on the spot, before whom Brooke was to appear and justify his proceedings against the pirate tribes, and his position as British Consul-General and Commissioner for Trade. The proceedings dragged on till 1855. The Commissioners sat at Labuan, and waited in vain for evidence in support of the charges against Brooke, while remonstrances, protests, and addresses in his favour poured in from all sides. The persecution collapsed shamefully and ignominiously, and the tardy approval of her Majesty's Government of "the manner in which you have dis- charged the duties entrusted to you as her Majesty's Commis- sioner," at length, in the autumn of 1855, reached the Rajah. But in the meantime he had been thoroughly soured, and his work crippled. No Queen's ship had visited Sarawak for years. The native chiefs believed him to be abandoned by England, and piracy was lifting its head again, while his private means were exhausted. While brooding over his wrongs, and the grudging amends which had been made, his perfect justification and triumph came in the most unexpected and terrible form. The Chinese colony rose on the night of February 18, 1857, burnt the Rajah's house and the public buildings, and murdered several of his officers, Brooke himself escaping by fighting his way out and swimming a creek. He threw himself at once on the warlike tribe of the Sakarran Dyaks, the pirates whom he had so lately tamed, and in a few days was again in his capital, more powerful than ever, while the remnant of the Chinese had escaped over the border. His worst enemies in England were now silenced, while some frankly owned the wrong they had done him, and from that day Sarawak was safe. But her founder, stricken down by illness, was soon obliged to resign the active government, and spent his last years in a cottage on Dartmoor, purchased by funds subscribed by his admirers at home, varied only by two short visits to Sarawak, now a consular station and the depOt of a powerful English company. The dis- pute between Brooke and his nephew, whom he left in charge on his return to England, is lightly touched in this book, and readers are left to infer that the nephew was entirely in the wrong. In justice to the memory of a gallant and loyal English-
' man, it should have been told that the cause of difference was the resolute opposition of the nephew to his uncle's proposal to place Sarawak under the protection of Louis Napoleon. It would have been better to have omitted all allusion to the quarrel, or to have given the facts.
"My policy in Sarawak," writes Rajah Brooke, in 1850, "has been high-handed against evil-doers. Your slip-shod policy is in the end a bloody and a cruel one." (Vol. II., p. 32.) Truer words were never spoken, and we could wish the lesson were taken to heart by those who will decide England's course on this Eastern Ques- tion in 1877. In another sentence of the same date, we think he gives the key to the misunderstanding and persecution which dogged him for six years. "I have a fixedness of purpose, and a devotion to any cause I embrace, so unfortunately mixed up with a lightness of temper and a scoffing playfulness, and an abhorrence of cant, that the solemn and silly will never compre- hend my character, and the suspicious and worldly never will trust and always will abuse me." (II., p. 34.) His great venture was made at the moment when England was in her meanest humour as to her colonial and imperial destinies, and now that she has recovered her senses, let us trust that the life's work of James Brooke will be valued and treasured.
In the short preface by General Jacob—of all living Englishmen probably the best judge in such a cause—the pith of the book is given in five lines, with which we will conclude :—" It furnishes a lesson in the government of Eastern people which those who have to deal with them will do well to study ; it shows with what facility a false cry can be raised, and how, in the name of humanity, humanity may suffer."
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