BRITISH BORNEO. 29 
tial Gaol, Court House, Government Offices, Public Market 
and Church, and is the headquarters of the Bishop of Singa- 
pore and Sarawak, who is the head of the Protestant Mission 
in the country. There is a well built brick Chinese trading 
quarter, or ‘“‘bazaar,’’ the Europeans have comfortable bun- 
galows, and the present population is said to number twelve 
thousand. 
In the early days of his reign, Sir JAMES BROOKE was 
energetically assisted in his great work of suppressing piracy 
and rendering the seas and rivers safe for the passage of the 
peaceful trader, by the British men-of-war on the China Sta- 
tion, and was singularly fortunate in having an energetic 
co-adjutor in Captain (now Admiral) Sir HENRY KEPPEL, K.C.B. 
It will give some idea of the extent to which piracy, then 
almost the sole occupation of the I[llanun, Balinini, and Sea 
Dyak tribes, was indulged in that the ‘‘ Headmoney,” then 
paid by the British Government for pirates destroyed, amount- 
ed in these expeditions to the large total of £20,000, the 
awarding of which sum occasioned a great stir at the time 
and led to the abolition of this system of “ payment by re- 
sults.” Mr. HUME took exception altogether to the action of 
Sir JAMES BROOKE, and, in 1851, charges were brought against 
him, and a Royal Commission appointed to take evidence on 
the spot, or rather at Singapore. 
A maulike BROOKE, of anenthusiastic, impulsive, unselfish and 
almost Quixotic disposition, who wore his heart on his sleeve 
and let his opinions of men and their actions be freely known, 
could not but have incurred the enmity of many meaner, self- 
seeking minds. The Commission, after hearing all that could 
be brought against him, found that there was nothing proved, 
but it was not deemed advisable that Sir JAMES should con- 
tinue to act as the British representative in Borneo and as 
Governor of the Colony of Labuan, positions which were in- 
deed incompatible with that of the independent ruler of Sara- 
wak. Sarawak independence was first recognised by the 
Americans, and the British followed suit in 1863, when a Vice- 
Consulate was established there. The question of formally 
proclaiming a British Protectorate over Sarawak is now being 
