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82 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



rajah, or king. The condition of affairs was most unpromising; Malays and Dyas were for 

 ever fighting among themselves, and were in a miserable condition especially the Dyas, 

 whom the Malays systematically plundered. The personal courage exhibited by Mr. Brooke, 

 and the sagacity and firmness with which he put down some of the earlier conspiracies against 

 his rule, won the better class of chiefs to his side. He administered the law with a strict 

 justice which in time was highly appreciated. "The success of this system," says Mr. W. H. 

 Guillemard, " was never better shown than during the Chinese insurrection, when, having 

 narrowly escaped with his life his friends killed or wounded, his house burnt down, and 

 much of the town destroyed the whole population, Malay and Dya alike, rallied round the 

 English rajah, drove out and almost exterminated the invaders, and 'triumphantly brought him 

 back to rule over them. In what other country shall we find rulers, alien in race, language, 



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and religion, yet so endeared to their subjects? And the phenomenon is still more marvellous 

 when we consider that these subjects were themselves of two races a superior and an inferior, 

 an oppressing and an oppressed; yet both alike joined to bring back the foreign ruler who had 

 introduced equality and stopped oppression. It requires no peculiar legal or diplomatic or 

 legislative training, but chiefly patience and good feeling, and the absence of prejudice. 

 The great thing is not to be in a hurry; to avoid over-legislation, law forms, and legal 

 subtleties; to aim first to make the people contented and happy in their own way, even if 

 that way should be quite opposed to European theories of how they ought to be happy. On 

 such principles Sir James Brooke's success was founded. It is true he spent a fortune instead 

 of making one; but he had his reward in having brought peace and safety and plenty 

 where there was before war and oppression and famine, and in leaving behind him over the 



