108 CHARACTER OP THE SULTAN: 



alone, according to the laws of Borneo, 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 

 his birth might have given him. His mind also is 

 weak, approaching to idiotcy; he is, nevertheless, 

 possessed of a wicked disposition, by encouraging 

 which his worthless advisers have held their sway over 

 him; amd by these means it was that the insolent 

 rebel, Pangeran Usuf, possessed his undue influence in 

 the councils of the kingdom. His weakness of intel- 

 lect, combined with the depravity of his dispo- 

 sition, causes him to be swayed by the advice 

 of the last speaker, and the worst and most wicked 

 counsels are sure to be the most acceptable to him. 



His object being immediate gain, his covetous dis- 

 position eagerly seizes upon all means of supplying 

 his cupidity ; and it was by their knowledge of this 

 trait in his character that the pangerans, who insti- 

 gated the murder of those rajahs that insisted upon 

 the suppression of piracy, gained the consent of their 

 avaricious lord. These unprincipled men are reported 

 to have laid before the sultan a statement of the riches 

 which would accrue to him from murdering his rela- 

 tions ; and the weak old man is said so eagerly to have 

 coveted the goods of his kinsmen, that so soon as the 

 murder and pillage were accomplished, his agents car- 

 ried the plunder to the anxiously expecting sultan. 



This consisted principally of the presents which had 

 been made to the rajahs by Mr. Brooke and the 



