Jin Account of Borneo. S33( 



part of the island of Borneo, I have presumed to lay before 

 you every even the minutest particular which has occurred! 

 to inv kno\vled2;e worthy your observation, that you may 

 be the better enabled to form a just idea of your connexions 

 here, and to judge with precision whar measures may here- 

 after most readily effect the objects you have had in view, 

 bv an establishment in this quarter. 



The chief and council of Balambangan, in the beginning 

 of the last vear, addressed a letter to the state of Borneo, 

 informing them of being arrived at Balambangan, and ex- 

 pressing their wishes to enter into fdliance with them. In 

 consequence of this invitation, an ambassador arrived from 

 thence in June ; and I had the honour of being appointed 

 to return with him to open an intercourse there, and to 

 enter into such engagements as might appear most to the 

 company's advantage. 



I arrived here in" the month of August, and found them 

 unanimous in their inclination to cultivate the friendship 

 and alliance of the honourable company: in consequence 

 thereof, I made it my first care to discover the motires 

 which principally induced them thereto, that I might be 

 the better enabled so to frame my treaty as to keep them 

 dependent in such particulars as thev most essentiall)' stood 

 in need of; which I then found to be, and have since beea 

 confirmed therein, was protection from their piratical neigh- 

 bours the Sooloos and Mindanaos, and others, who were 

 making continual depredations on their coast by taking ad- 

 vantage of their natural timidity. To relieve tbeiB, there- 

 fore, in this particular, and to induce them the more readily 

 to consent to mv subsequent proposals, T stipulated by one 

 of the articles, that (if attacked) the company should pro- 

 tect them ; and having thus gratified them in their principal 

 want, in return I demanded for the company, agreeable to 

 the tenor of mv instructions, the exclusive trade of the 

 pepper, as I well knew it was the grand object they wished 

 to attain ; and I thcreh)re also made it my study to be 

 thoroughly acquainted with every particular relati\-e thereto. 

 1 was mformed the (piantity that year was 4000 peculs, 

 cultivated solely by a colony of Chinese settled here, and 

 sold to the junks at the rate of 17-2 per pecul, in China 

 cloth called congongs:, which, for want of any other specie, 

 are become the standard for regulating the price of all other ' 

 commercial eommoditic.:. at this port. Although 1 was well 

 convinced it could never answer the company's purpose to 

 pay So high a price for the pepper, e.-pecially where the 

 quantity was so. small, I notwiinstanding in tljc treaty made 



a point 



