43 BRITISH BORNEO. 
proposed to take possession of Labuan. Then followed 
the episode already narrated of the murder by the Sultan of 
Raja Muda HAssiM and his family and the taking of Brunai 
by Admiral: COCHRANE’S Squadron. In November, 1846, 
instructions were received in Singapore, from Lord PAL- 
MERSTON, to take possession of Labuan, and Captain RODNEY 
MUNDY was selected for this service. He arrived in Brunai 
in December, and gives an amusing account of how he pro- 
ceeded to carry out his orders and obtain the voluntary ces- 
sion of the island. As a preliminary, he sent ‘‘ Lieutenant 
‘‘ LITTLE in charge of the boats of the /rzs and Wolf, armed 
“with twenty marines, to the capital, with orders to moor 
“ them in line of battle opposite the Sultan’s palace, and to 
‘await my arrival.’ On reaching the palace, Captain MUN- 
DY produced a brief document, to which he requested the 
Sultan to affix his seal, and which provided for eternal friend- 
ship between the two countries, and for the cession of Labuan, 
in consideration of which the Queen engaged to use her best 
endeavours to suppress piracy and protect lawful commerce. 
The document of 1844 had stated that Labuan would be 
ceded ‘‘on such terms as may hereafter be arranged,” and a 
promise to suppress piracy, the profits 1n which were shared 
by the Sultan and his nobles, was by no means regarded by 
them as a fair set off; 1t was a condition with which they 
would have readily dispensed. The Sultan ventured to re- 
mark that the present treaty was different to the previous 
one, and that a money payment was required in exchange 
for the cession of territory. Captain MUNDy replied that the 
former treaty had been broken when Her Majesty’s Ships 
were fired on by the Brunai forts, and “at last I turned to 
the Sultan, and exclaimed firmly, ‘Bobo chop bobo chop!’ 
followed up by a few other Malay words, the tenor of which 
was, that I recommended His Majesty to put his seal forth- 
with.” And he did so. Captain MUNDY hoisted the British 
Flag at Labuan on the 24th December, 1846, and there still 
exists at Labuan in the place where it was erected by the 
gallant Captain, a granite slab, with an inscription recording 
the fact of the formal taking possession of the island in Her 
Majesty’s name. 
