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

7. Weights and measures shall be settled and money current in the country, and doits[99 - Duit, Malay for a cent.] introduced, that the poor may purchase food cheaply.

8. Obedience to the ordinances will be strictly enforced.

The Rajah's next step was to redress some of the wrongs to which the unhappy people had been subjected, and by ameliorating their condition to gain their confidence. The Rajah Muda Hasim and his brothers were in his way, "and the intriguing, mean, base Brunis, who depended upon the support of the pangirans to escape punishment when guilty;"[100 - Rajah Brooke.] but, nevertheless, at the end of the year he was able to write that he had done much good – that he had saved the lives of many people, restored many captives to their families, and freed many slaves from bondage, and above all, that he had repressed vice, and had assisted the distressed.

The Rajah had also to safeguard his country; to prepare to take the offensive against the Malays and Sea-Dayaks of the Sekrang and Saribas; and to guard against the plots and designs of his neighbours the sherips, who viewed with no friendly eye the establishment of a government in Sarawak, having as its principal objects the suppression of piracy and lawlessness. It was a menace to them, and they knew it, and to retain their power they were prepared to go to any length. Already Sherip Sahap and his brother Sherip Mular had sent people against the Sempro and Sentah Dayaks; and the former had endeavoured to withdraw the allegiance of the datus from the Rajah, but in this he failed. As a defensive measure the Rajah built a fort and palisaded his little town. He also constructed war-boats for the protection of the coast, and to take the offensive, which he saw must be inevitable.

The Rajah soon showed the Saribas the power of his arm. Thirteen of their large war-boats appeared off the coast on a piratical cruise, and these were met and attacked by three of the Rajah's well-armed boats and driven back with heavy loss. Retaliation was threatened, and the Dayaks prepared, but it was a long time before they again appeared, and the terror of Brooke's name kept them off Sarawak. At this time Sherip Sahap also received a lesson. He had sent a Pangiran Bedrudin to Kuching on a secret mission, and the pangiran on his way down river fell in with and attacked a Chinese boat, wounding two of the crew, one mortally. The Rajah immediately gave chase, and after eight days came up with them. One of the pangiran's crew, a Lanun penglima, amoked, but was killed by the Datu Patinggi Ali before he could do any harm; the rest surrendered, and were taken to Kuching, where the pangiran, and another, a relation of his, were executed, and the crew imprisoned.

A month later, two Singgi Dayak chiefs, Pa Rimbun and Pa Tumo, for killing Segu Dayaks within the State, were arrested and executed. These examples showed his neighbours that the Rajah was determined to protect his people; and it showed the people that the law would be administered with an equal and firm hand.

But as yet the ratification of his appointment had not been made, and on July 14th, 1842, the Rajah left for Bruni to obtain from the Sultan the confirmation of his nomination by Hasim, and to effect, if possible, a reconciliation between the Sultan and his uncle, as he was naturally desirous to get the latter, his brothers, and their Bruni followers, away from Sarawak, so as to give stability to the Government, and to prevent a needless drain upon the treasury. Another object the Rajah had in view was to obtain the release of about twenty-five Lascars belonging to an English ship, the Lord Melbourne, which had lately been wrecked, and who had found their way to Bruni, where they were being detained in captivity.

As it happened, another English ship, the Sultana, had about eighteen months previously been wrecked on the N.W. coast, struck by lightning, and the captain, his wife, two passengers, one a lady, and some English seamen, had escaped to Bruni in the long boat; the Lascars had landed farther north, and had been captured and sold into slavery by Sherip Usman. The Sultan seized these unfortunate people, and robbed them of their money, some jewels, and their boat. He further compelled them to sign bonds to himself for considerable sums of money, and he had treated them with harshness and inhumanity.

On hearing of this Mr. Brooke had sent his yacht, the Royalist, to Bruni to obtain their release, but this had been refused by the Sultan, and then he communicated with Singapore. The East India Company's Steamer Diana was despatched to Bruni, ran up the river and pointed its guns on the palace. The Sultan was so thoroughly alarmed that he surrendered the captives, after a detention of eight months, and the dread of the "fire-ship" remained on him, so that when the Rajah arrived he was in a compliant mood, and received him most cordially.

It may be as well here to give a description of Bruni and of its Court.

The Bruni river flows into a noble bay, across which to the north lies the island of Labuan. Above the town the river is very small, and rises but some fifteen to twenty miles inland. Where the town is, the river is very broad, forming a large lake. The town is commanded by hills once under cultivation; on an island at the mouth of the entrance are the shattered remains of an old Portuguese fort, which was still standing, though ruinous, when Hunt visited the place in 1809. The town itself has been designated the "Venice of Borneo" by old writers, a description to which the Italian Beccari rightly objected,[101 - "I admit that Bruni has its points, but what irony to compare for a moment the city of marble palaces with the mass of miserable huts which a single match could easily reduce to ashes." – Beccari, op. cit. The Rajah called the place a "Venice of hovels." Mercator in his Atlas describes it as "being situated on a saltwater lagoon like Venice," hence probably it became known as the Venice of Borneo.] and is mainly built on piles driven into the mud on a shallow in the middle of the lake, the houses occupying wooden platforms elevated some ten feet above the reach of the tide. Communication between them is effected by canoes, in which the women daily go through the town selling provisions. It is, in a word, similar to the palafitte villages found in prehistoric times in the lakes of Switzerland and Lombardy. A part of the town, including the houses of the Sultan and the wazirs, is situated on the left bank of the river. It is the Bruni of Pigafetta's time, though sadly reduced in size and importance. Then the Sultan's palace was enclosed by a strong brick wall,[102 - Kota batu, stone fort. The name still remains. It was built towards the close of the fifteenth century by Sherip Ali, the first Arab Sultan, with the aid of the Chinese subjects his wife's mother had brought to Bruni. The city was then nearer the mouth of the river. It was moved to its present position by Sultan Muadin about 200 years ago.] with barbicans mounting fifty-six cannon, now it is but a roughly built barn-like shed. Gone are the richly caparisoned elephants, and gone too is all the old pride, pomp, and panoply, including the spoons of gold, which particularly struck the old voyager.[103 - Magellan, Hakluyt Society, and the Portuguese Jorge de Menezes, who visited Bruni five years after Pigafetta, notices that the city was surrounded with a wall of brick, and possessed some noble edifices. Other early voyagers describe the sultans and rulers of Malayan States as maintaining great style, and their equipments, – such as swords of state, saddles, chairs, eating and drinking utensils – as being of pure gold. Allowing for some exaggeration, this would still point to a former condition of prosperity which enabled rulers and nobles to keep up a pageantry which has long since vanished.] Bruni has no defences now, but, at the period of which we are writing, there were batteries planted on each side of the inlet commanding the approach, also two forts on the heights, and one battery on a tongue of land that looked down the estuary, and which could rake a fleet advancing towards the town, whilst the batteries on the two banks poured in a flank fire.

When the tide goes out the mud is most offensive to European nostrils, as all the filth and offal is cast into it from the platforms, and left there to decompose. The town at the time of the Rajah's visit, was in a condition of squalid wretchedness – the buildings, all of wood and leaf matting, were in a tumbledown state; and the population was mainly composed of slaves and the hangers on of the Sultan, the nobles, and other members of the upper classes. The Sultan was a man past fifty years of age, short and puffy in person, with a countenance indicative of imbecility. In his journal the Rajah wrote:

His right hand is garnished with an extra diminutive thumb, the natural member being crooked and distorted.[104 - This malformation, according to the laws of Bruni, would have disqualified him for the throne, for these provide that no person in any way imbecile in mind or deformed in person can enjoy the regal dignity, whatever title to it his birth might have given him. – Sir Hugh Low, op. cit. p. 108.] His mind, indexed by his face, seems to be a chaos of confusion, without dignity and without good sense. He can neither read nor write, is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as might be expected, are of the lower order, and mischievous from their ignorance and their greediness. He is always talking, and generally joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes' consecutive attention. His rapacity is carried to such an excess as to astonish a European, and is evinced in a thousand mean ways. The presents I made him were unquestionably handsome, but he was not content without begging from me the share I had reserved for the other pangirans; and afterwards solicited mere trifles such as sugar, pen-knives, and the like. To crown all he was incessantly asking what was left in the vessel, and when told the truth – that I was stripped bare as a tree in winter – he frequently returned to the charge.

The Court at Bruni consisted of the Pangiran Mumin, the Sultan's uncle by marriage, a fairly well-disposed man, though a friend of Makota, but of no ability, avaricious, and with the mind of a huckster, who afterwards became Sultan. There were several uncles of the Sultan, but they were devoid of influence, and were mostly absent in Sarawak, whereas the Pangiran Usup, an illegitimate son of Sultan Muhammad Tejudin, and consequently a left-handed uncle to the reigning Sultan, – a man crafty, unscrupulous, and ambitious, – held sway over the mind of his nephew, and induced him to look with suspicion on his uncles of legitimate birth. This man was in league with the pirates, and a determined opponent of British interference. Consequently, though outwardly most friendly, he was bitterly opposed to the white Rajah, against whom he was already plotting to accomplish his eviction, or his death. Though Pangiran Usup was well aware of the Rajah's determination to stamp out piracy and oppression, yet he was not wise enough to foresee that to measure his strength against a chivalrous and resolute Englishman, who had even a stronger support behind him than those forces he was already slowly and surely gathering around himself, must be futile, and that it would end in his own ruin. Among the Sultan's legitimate uncles the only man of ability and integrity was the Pangiran Bedrudin, who had accompanied the Rajah to Bruni, and who was always frank with him and supported his schemes.

The Rajah had daily interviews with the Sultan, who expressed a great personal regard for him, and frequently swore "eternal friendship," clasping his hand and repeating "amigo saya, amigo saya."[105 - Saya, or more correctly, sahaya (mis-spelt suya in the Rajah's badly edited journals) is the Malay for I, mine; so amigo saya would be, My friend. Amigo was one of the few Spanish words the Sultan had.] He readily confirmed the cession made by Rajah Muda Hasim, being satisfied with the amount promised as his share of the Sarawak revenue, and said, "I wish you to be there; I do not wish anybody else; you are my amigo, and it is nobody's business but mine; the country is mine, and if I please to give you all, I can."

The deed to which Rajah Muda Hasim had affixed his seal on September 24, 1841, was to the following effect: —

That the country and government of Sarawak is made over to Mr. Brooke (to be held under the crown of Bruni), with all its revenues and dependencies, on the yearly payment of 500. That Mr. Brooke is not to infringe upon the customs or religion of the people; and in return, that no person is to interfere with him in the management of the country.

The confirmatory deed was executed on August 1, 1842, and was in tenor and purport similar to that granted by Hasim, with the exception of an additional clause precluding the alienation of Sarawak by the Rajah without the consent of the Sultan.

The Sultan also told the Rajah that it would be a delight to him to welcome both his uncles, Hasim and Bedrudin, back to Bruni, and begged the Rajah to carry for him a friendly letter to the former, conveying assurance that he was completely reconciled to him. Bruni, he said, would never be well until his return. The Lascars of the Lord Melbourne were at once given up, and the Rajah also procured the release of three of the Sultana's Lascars, who had been transferred to Bruni masters. He remained at Bruni for ten days – a period, as he wrote, "quite sufficient to discover to me the nakedness of the land, their civil dissensions, and the total decay of their power, internal and external."

On his return the Rajah received a cordial welcome, for it was believed that he would certainly be killed in Bruni; and on September 18, the deed was read appointing him to hold the government of Sarawak. The ceremony was impressive, but it nearly became tragical. We will give the Rajah's own description of it. After the deed had been read —

The Rajah (Muda Hasim) descended, and said aloud "If any one present disowns or contests the Sultan's appointment, let him now declare." All were silent. He next turned to the Patinggis and asked them. They were obedient to the will of the Sultan. Then came the other pangirans. "Is there any pangiran or any young Rajah that contests the question? Pangiran der Makota, what do you say?" Makota expressed his willingness to obey. One or two other obnoxious pangirans, who had always opposed themselves to me, were each in turn challenged, and forced to promise obedience. The Rajah then waved his sword, and with a loud voice exclaimed, "Whoever he is that disobeys the Sultan's mandate now received I will separate his skull." At the moment some ten of his brothers jumped from the verandah, and, drawing their long krises, began to flourish and dance about, thrusting close to Makota, striking the pillar above his head, and pointing their weapons at his breast. This amusement, the violence of motion, the freedom from restraint, this explosion of a long pent up animosity, roused all their passions; and had Makota, through an excess of fear or an excess of bravery, started up he would have been slain, and other blood would have been spilt. But he was quiet, with his face pale and subdued, and, as shortly as decency would permit after the riot had subsided, took his leave.

The Rajah now ordered Makota to leave the country, an order that could not be ignored, though he kept deferring his departure on one pretext after another, and it was not until the arrival of the Dido some eight months later that he quitted Sarawak, and that suddenly. He then joined Sherip Sahap at Sadong, and when that piratical chief's power was broken, he retired along with him to Patusan. Makota was captured after the destruction of that place in 1844, but, unfortunately, the Rajah spared his life. He then retired to Bruni, there to continue his plots against the English, and in 1845 was commissioned by the Sultan to murder Rajah Brooke, but found that the execution of this design would be too distinctly dangerous; and, though he bearded the lion in his den, it was only in the guise of a beggar. At Bruni he rose to power, and, as already related in chapter II., became a scourge to the natives in that part of the sultanate. His end was this: – In November, 1858, he headed a raid at Awang in the Limbang to sweep together a number of Bisaya girls to fill his harem, when he was fallen upon by the natives at night time and killed.

The Rajah now set to work in earnest to put the Government on a sound footing. He made no attempt to introduce a brand new constitution and laws, but took what already existed. He found the legal code was just enough on paper, but had been over-ridden and nullified by the lawless pangirans. All that was necessary was to enforce the existing laws, modifying the penalties where too cruel and severe, and introducing fresh laws as occasion required. "I hate," he wrote in October, "the idea of an Utopian government, with laws cut and dried ready for the natives, being introduced. Governments, like clothes, will not suit everybody, and certainly a people who gradually develop their government, though not a good one, are nearer happiness and stability than a government of the best which is fitted at random. I am going on slowly and surely, basing everything on their own laws, consulting all the headmen at every step, instilling what I think right – separating the abuses from the customs." The government which he had displaced was so utterly bad that any change was certain to be accepted by the people with hope of improvement; and when it was found, that by the introduction of a wise system of taxation, which actually doubled the revenue, whilst to the popular mind it seemed to halve their burden – when, moreover, they found that justice was strictly and impartially administered in the courts – they welcomed the change with whole-hearted gratitude. The Rajah associated the native chiefs with himself in the government, and found them amenable to wholesome principles, and on the whole to be level-headed men. By this means mutual confidence was inspired, and the foundation laid of a government, the principle of which was and has ever since been "to rule for the people and with the people," to quote the Rajah writing twenty-two years later, "and to teach them the rights of freemen under the restraints of government. The majority of the "Council"[106 - Established in 1855.] secures a legal ascendency for native ideas of what is best for their happiness, here and hereafter. The wisdom of the white man cannot become a hindrance, and the English ruler must be their friend and guide, or nothing. The citizen of Sarawak has every privilege enjoyed by the citizen of England, and far more personal freedom than is known in a thickly populated country. They are not taught industry by being forced to work. They take a part in the government under which they live; they are consulted upon the taxes they pay; and, in short, they are free men.

"This is the government which has struck its roots into the soil for the last quarter of a century, which has triumphed over every danger and difficulty, and which has inspired its people with confidence."

The revenue of Sarawak was in utter confusion. Over large tracts of country no tax could be enforced, and the Rajah, as he had undertaken, was determined to lighten the load that had weighed so crushingly, and was inflicted so arbitrarily on the loyal Land-Dayaks – loyal hitherto, not in heart, but because powerless to resist. To carry on the government without funds was impossible, and the want of these was now, and for many years to come, the Rajah's greatest trouble. Consequently the antimony ore was made a monopoly of the government, which was a fair and just measure, and to the general advantage of the community, though it was subsequently seized upon as a pretext for accusing the Rajah of having debased his position by engaging in trade. But it was years before the revenue was sufficient to meet the expenditure, and gradually the Rajah sacrificed his entire fortune to pay the expenses of the administration.

In undertaking the government he had three objects in view: —

(1) The relief of the unfortunate Land-Dayaks from oppression.

(2) The suppression of piracy, and the restoration to a peaceable and orderly life, of those tribes of Dayaks who had been converted into marauders by their Malay masters.

(3) The suppression of head-hunting.

But these ends could not be attained all at once. The first was the easiest arrived at, and the news spread through the length and breadth of the island that there was one spot on its surface where the native was not ground to powder, and where justice reigned. The result was that the Land-Dayaks flocked to it. Whole families came over from the Dutch Protectorate, where there was no protection; and others who had fled to the mountains and the jungle returned to the sites of their burnt villages.

How this has worked, on the same undeviating lines of a sound policy, under the rule of the two Rajahs, the following may show. Writing in 1867, on revisiting Sarawak, Admiral the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel said:

It brought back to my mind some four-and-twenty years ago, when I first came up in the Dido with Sir James Brooke on board, and gave the first and nearly the only help he had in securing his position, thereby enabling him to carry out his philanthropic views for the benefit of a strange race. If he had not succeeded to the full extent of his then sanguine hopes, still there is no man living, or to come, who, single-handed, will have benefited his fellow-creatures to the extent Brooke has. In 1842, piracy, slavery, and head-hunting were the order of the day. The sail of a peaceful trader was nowhere to be seen, not even a fisherman, but along the length of this beautiful coast, far into the interior, the Malays and Dayaks warred on one another. Now how different! Huts and fishing stakes are to be seen all along the coast, the town of Kuching, which on the visit of the Dido, had scarcely 800 inhabitants, now has a population of 20,000. The aborigines, who called themselves warriors, are now peaceful traders and cultivators of rice. The jungle is fast being cleared to make way for farms.

Head-hunting, the third aim which Rajah Brooke held before his eyes, was an ingrained custom of the race which could not be eradicated at once. The utmost that he could effect at first was to prevent the taking of heads of any of the subjects under his rule. All the tribes that were in his raj were to be regarded as friends, and were therefore not to be molested. Any breach of the peace, every murder was severely punished. In a short time head-hunting and intertribal feuds amongst the Sarawak Dayaks were extirpated, and the raj ceased to be a hunting-field for the Sekrang and Saribas Dayaks; but they continued to haunt the coast together with the Lanun and Balenini pirates, and the suppression of piracy was the most serious undertaking of the three, and took many years to accomplish.

Early in 1843, the Rajah visited Singapore to further the interests of his raj, and for a change. His main wish, which he had repeatedly expressed, was to transfer Sarawak to the Crown, and he likewise impressed upon the Government the policy of establishing a settlement at Labuan, and of obtaining a monopoly of the coal in the Bruni Sultanate. He was able to interest the Chinese merchants in the trade of Sarawak. But the most important matter was the immediate suppression of the ravages committed by the pirates, both Dayak and Malay; and here Providence threw across his path, in the person of Captain the Hon. Henry Keppel,[107 - Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet. He died, January 1904.] the very assistance he required. Between the white Rajah and the Rajah Laut (Sea King), the title by which Keppel became known, and was ever afterwards remembered in Sarawak, a sincere attachment arose. Keppel was attracted by the Rajah's lovable personality, and sympathised with his objects; and, being chivalrous and always ready to act upon his own responsibility, he at once decided to lend all the support in his power, which any other naval officer might have hesitated to have done. The aid he so nobly rendered came at an opportune time, for it not only administered to the pirates a severe lesson, but also taught those inimical to his rule that the white Rajah was not held aloof by his own countrymen, and thus consolidated his power by reassuring the waverers and encouraging the loyal. The kindly and gallant Keppel stands foremost amongst the friends of Sarawak, to which State he rendered not only the splendid services to be recorded in our next chapter, but ever evinced a keen and kindly interest in its welfare, and in its Rajahs, to whom he was ever ready to lend his able support and influence, and of whom the Rajah wrote, "He is my friend and the benefactor of Sarawak."

CHAPTER IV

THE PIRATES

As we have already mentioned, the second, and by far the most difficult, task that Rajah Brooke had set before him, and was determined to accomplish, was the suppression of piracy, which he rightly described as an evil almost as disgraceful to the European nations who permitted it as to the native States engaged in it.

The principal piratical peoples at the time were the Illanun, or Lanun, the Balenini, the Bajaus, and the Sulus, all living to the north or north-east of Bruni, and consequently far beyond the jurisdiction of the Rajah. To these must be added the Sea-Dayaks of the Saribas and Sekrang, who, led by their Malay allies, though less formidable to trade, were far more destructive of human life.

The Sambas Malays had also been pirates, but at this period had ceased to be such. Earl, who visited Sambas in 1834, says, that "before the arrival of the Dutch Sambas was a nest of pirates. In 1812, having attacked an English vessel, several British men-of-war were sent from Batavia to attack the town. The inhabitants resisted, but were defeated, the fort was razed to the ground, and the guns tumbled into the river." The reoccupation by the Dutch shortly afterwards of this place, Pontianak, and Banjermasin, put some check upon the piratical habits of the Malays in the western and southern States,[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.] but the Malays of the eastern shores of Borneo, especially those of Koti, to the north and north-west, were all pirates; and even the people of Bruni were imbued with piratical habits, which were generally inherent in the Malay character, though they were not enterprising enough to be openly piratical, or to do more than encourage their bolder neighbours, from whom they could obtain plunder and slaves cheaply; and near Bruni, within the territory of the Sultan, were several piratical strongholds. All these were under the control of half-bred Arab sherips, as also were the Saribas and the Sekrangs.

The Lanuns are natives of the large island of Mindanau, or Magindanau, the southernmost of the Philippine group. They were known to the Spaniards as "Los Illanos de la laguna," and, in common with all Muhammadans, were classed by them as Moros or Moors. On the lagoon, or bay, of Lanun they live. They were the boldest and most courageous of the pirates, and the most dangerous to Europeans, whom they never hesitated to attack, not even the Dutch gunboats, and to whom, unlike the Balenini pirates, they would never give quarter, owing to a hatred, born of former injustice and inhumanity, received at the hands of those whom they could only have regarded as white barbarians. They became incorrigible and cruel pirates, looking upon piracy as a noble profession, though Dampier, who spent six months amongst them in 1686-7, and who was very hospitably treated, says nothing of piracy, and he gives a full and intelligent account of the island, its inhabitants, and products. He describes the "Hilanoons" as being a peaceable people, who bought foreign commodities with the product of their gold mines. The Spaniards had sometime before occupied the island, but the garrison had to be suddenly withdrawn to Manila, in consequence of a threatened invasion of that place by the Chinese. The Sultan then seized their cannon, demolished their forts, and expelled their friars. Then it was the Dutch they feared; they wished the English to establish a Factory there,[109 - A Collection of Voyages, 1729.] and subsequently, in 1775, ceded a small island to the H.E.I. Company for that purpose.

Though the Spanish had a settlement on the western end of the island they were unable to keep the Lanun pirates in check, and on occasions were severely handled by them, as were also the Dutch.

With these pirates were associated the Bajaus or sea-gipsies, a roving people, who lived entirely in their prahus, with their women and children.

The vessels employed by Lanuns on marauding expeditions were sometimes of 60 tons burden, built very sharp in the prow and wide in beam, and over 90 feet in length. A double tier of oars was worked by slaves to the number of 100, and the fighting men would be from 30 to 40; the prahus of the smallest size carried from 50 to 80 in all. The bows of the vessels were solidly built, and fortified with hard wooden baulks capable of resisting a 6-pounder shot; often they were shod with iron. Here a narrow embrasure admitted a gun for a 6 to a 24-pound shot. In addition to this, the armaments consisted of several guns, usually of brass, of smaller calibre. Sometimes the piratical fleets comprised as many as 200 prahus, though the Lanuns usually cruised in small fleets of 20 to 30 sail. They would descend on a coast and attack any village, sack and burn it, kill the defenders, carry away men, women, and children as slaves, slaughter the cattle, and ravage the plantations. A cargo of slaves captured on the east coast of Borneo would be sold on the west coast, and those taken in the south would find a ready market in the north, in Sulu[110 - Sulu was the principal market for the disposal of captives and plunder.] and the Lanun country. Their cruising grounds were extensive – around the coasts of the Philippine islands, Borneo, and Celebes to Sumatra, Java, and the Malay peninsula, through the Moluccas to New Guinea, and even up the Bay of Bengal as far as Rangoon. In 1834, a fleet of these Lanuns swept round the coast of a small island in the Straits of Rhio, opposite Singapore, and killed or carried away all the inhabitants.[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.] In addition to their original home in the bay of Lanun, they had settlements in Marudu Bay in the north of Borneo, and towns along the west coast almost as far south as Ambong, and on the east coast to Tungku, and on to Koti. In Marudu their chief was Sherip Usman, who was married to a sister of the Sultan Muda of Sulu, and who was in league with Pangiran Usup, uncle to the Sultan of Bruni, and his principal adviser. Usman supplied the pirates with powder, shot, and guns, and they, on returning from a piratical expedition, paid him at the rate of four captives for every 100 rupees worth of goods with which he had furnished them. Such captives as had been taken in the vicinity of Bruni he would sell to Pangiran Usup for 100 rupees each, who would then demand of their friends and relations Rs. 200 for each. "Thus this vile Sherip, not reckoning the enormous price he charged for his goods in the first instance, gained 500 per cent for every slave, and the Pangiran Usup cleared 100 per cent by the flesh of his own countrymen."

In 1844, Ambong was a flourishing town occupied by an industrious and peaceable people, subjects of the Sultan of Bruni. In 1846, Captain Rodney Mundy, R.N., visited it, and the town was represented by a heap of ruins alone; the inhabitants had been slaughtered, or enslaved to be passed on to Usup, that he might make what he could out of them, by holding them to ransom by their relatives.

The Balenini were hand in glove with the Lanuns, and often associated with them in their expeditions. They issued from a group of islands in the Sulu sea, and acted in complicity with the Sultan of Sulu, whose country was the great nucleus of piracy. They equipped annually considerable fleets to prey upon the commerce with Singapore and the Straits; they also attacked villages, and carried off alike crews of vessels and villagers to slavery, to be crowded for months in the bottom of the pirate vessels, suffering indescribable miseries. Their cruising grounds were also very extensive; the whole circuit of Borneo was exposed to their attacks, except only the Lanun settlements, for hawks do not peck out hawk's een. When pursued and liable to be overtaken, they cut the throats of their captives and threw them overboard, men, women, and children alike. Up to 1848, the principal Balenini strongholds were in Balenini, Tongkil, and Basilan islands, but they were then driven out of the two former islands by the Spaniards, and they established themselves on other islands in the Sulu Archipelago; and Tawi Tawi island, which had always been one of their strongholds, then became their principal one.

Trade with Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago was rendered almost impossible, or at least a very dangerous pursuit, and even merchantmen using the Palawan passage to China, which takes them close along the coast of Borneo, often fell a prey to these pirates.

Earl, writing a year or two before the advent of the late Rajah to Sarawak, remarks in connection with Borneo, that it ought to be considered but "an act of justice to the natives of the Indian Archipelago, whom we have enticed to visit our settlement of Singapore, that some exertion should be made towards the suppression of piracy." He blames the unaccountable indifference and neglect which the British Government had hitherto displayed, and expresses his sympathy for the natives. He considered it his duty to point the way – it was left to the late Rajah to lead in it.

The Natuna, the Anamba, and the Tambilan islands, which stretch across the entrance of the China sea between Borneo and the Malay peninsula, were common lurking haunts of the pirates. Amongst these islands they could find water and shelter; could careen, clean, and repair their prahus; and they were right in the track of vessels bound to Singapore, or northward to the Philippines or China. To replenish their stores and to obtain arms and ammunition they would sail to Singapore in innocent-looking captured prahus, where they found a ready market for their booty amongst the Chinese. Muskets of English make and powder from English factories were found in captured prahus and strongholds. At Patusan a number of barrels of fine gunpowder from Dartford were discovered exactly as these had left the factory in England.

Against these the Rajah was powerless to take the offensive. They had to be left to be reduced or cowed by the spasmodic efforts of British men-of-war. What he urged, though ineffectually, was that a man-of-war should patrol the coast and curb the ruffians. What was actually done, but not until later, was to attack and burn a stronghold or two, and then retire. The pirates fled into the jungle, but returned when the British were gone, rebuilt their houses, and supplied themselves with fresh vessels.

Near at hand were the Saribas and Sekrang Sea-Dayaks occupying the basins of rivers of these names, the Sekrang being an affluent of the Batang Lupar.