512 Js 01*1 CES OF EUROFEAN INTERCOURSE WITH BORNEO. 
Dutch Resident, and after the factory was withdrawn they regularly 
repaired to it. 
In 1703 the Sultan of Sulu ceded to the East India Company his 
possessions in the north of Borneo, extending from the river Kimanis 
to Cape Kaniongan, embracing the districts of Pappal, Maludu, Man- 
gidora, and Tirun.* In 1773 a small settlement was formed on the 
Island of Balambangan. In 1774 a resident was sent to Brand 
who concluded a treaty with the king by which the English engag¬ 
ed to defend Brand against the expeditions of the Sulu and Menda- 
nao pirates, and the Sultan agreed to give Balambangan the exclu¬ 
sive trade in the pepper of Brune.f On the 24th April 1775 a 
band of Stilus captured the fort of Balambangan by surprise, and car¬ 
ried away booty to the value of about a million of dollars* The esta¬ 
blishment fled to Brand w here they were well received. The facto¬ 
ry was continued there for some years later and then abandoned. 
In 1803 Balambangan was reoccupied by the East India Com¬ 
pany, but as they derived no advantage from it they withdrew their 
establishment in 1804. No settlement has been formed on the 
northern districts of Borneo, nor has any jurisdiction been exer¬ 
cised over them, since this time. 
Towards the end of the last century the rulers and people of Bor¬ 
neo Proper and the neighbouring country of Sambas abandoned them¬ 
selves so recklessly to their piratical propensities, that all pacific in¬ 
tercourse with the great foreign trading nations ceased. English 
traders, with their usual daring perseverance, for a time occasionally 
sought to renew the trade, but the loss of the May in 1788, the Susan¬ 
na in 1803, and the Commerce in 1806 with the cruel murder of the 
Europeans on board, J proved the country to have become thorough¬ 
ly piratical, and the British hydrographer of the Asiatic seas warned 
our navigators that it was certain destruction to go up the river 
to the town.§ 
* Mr. Hunt’s particulars relating to Sulu. (Moor’s Notices p. 53.) 
-j- Raffles’ Java vol. i. p. 267. t Hunt. 
$ This emphatic warning is retained by the editor of the last edition of 
Horsburgh published in 1843, two years after Sir J, Brooke had establish¬ 
ed himself in Sarawak. 
