NOTICES OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE WITH BORNEO. 409 
the Portuguese. We have not access to any Spanish writers who 
enter into details on the subject, but it appears that attempts were 
made to conquer it which did not succeed. In 1573 an embassy was 
sent to Brunei which came to nothing, as the king had no desire to 
be on terms with the Spaniards.* In 1576 an expedition under Don 
Francisco La Sande, the second governor of Manila, attacked Brand, 
deposed the king who had usurped the throne, and reinstated ins 
brother Sirela, who had repaired to Manila to solicit assistance, promis¬ 
ing that the whole island (which did not belong to him) should be¬ 
come tributary to Spain.f Sirela was a second time dethroned by his 
brother, and in 1580 Captain Rivera was sent to restore him, which 
he succeeded in doing.J The Bornean Malays having joined the 
Sulus in some of their piratical expeditions to the PhiMpines, Major 
Monforte was despatched in 1645 to punish them. “ He landed 
in Borneo, burned and destroyed all the towns within Ills reach, toge- 
with great quantities of provisions and a number of vessels, and made 
about 200 prisoners.”! Mr. Hunt says that the Spaniards removed 
from the port of Borneo in 1646, || thus implying that they had 
previously been established there. But Zuniga does not mention the 
existence of a factory. From 1568 to 1664 the Spaniards had not 
intermitted their efforts to bring the Sulus under subjection, but in 
the latter year they concluded a treaty of peace with them.^f If 
these islands had not been interposed between the Philipines and 
Brand, and afforded such constant occupation for the Spanish forces 
in repelling piracies along their own shores, and making fruitless 
attacks in return, it is probable that Brand would long ago have 
been annexed to the Spanish colonies. In 1685 Captain Cowley 
relates that the governor of Manila had concluded a perpetual peace 
with the king of Brand.** Since this period the Manila government 
* Zuniga’s Historical view of the Philipine islands (Maver’s translation, 
vol. I. p. 160,) 
f lb. p. 160. i lb. p. 164. $ lb. p. 282. 
jj Some particulars relative to Sutu <£?c,, p. 92. (published at Bencoolen 
in the Malayan Miscellanies, reprinted in Mr, Moor’s Notices of the Indian 
Archipelago.) 
% lb., (Moor’s Notices p. 52). 
** “The Spanish governor of Manila having found the sweet riches of 
Borneo, hath made a perpetual peace with this great king, who was always 
at war before. The articles whereof Were, that the kins of Borneo should 
