254 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
hoisted in 1763, and a post established on the island by 
the East India Company about the year 1770, which 
acted in some degree as a check upon the pirates with 
which these seas at that time swarmed. The garrison at 
first numbered nearly four hundred men, but the climate 
had told so severely upon them that only 7 5 infantry and 
28 gunners w^ere fit for duty on the occasion of which 
we are now speaking. The Spanish were at this time 
intriguing in Sulu, where opinion was divided among the 
Datus, some being in favour of the English, while others 
wished to expel them. Eventually the counsel of the 
latter prevailed, and on the 5th March, 1775, the place 
was surprised and taken by a force of 300 Sulu and 
Illanun pirates under the Datu Tenteng; the whole 
garrison, with the exception of the Governor and two or 
three men, slaughtered ; and booty to the value of one 
million Spanish dollars seized. The Sultan of Sulu, 
although nominally repudiating this act, received a great 
part of the spoil, and no reparation appears to have been 
exacted by the English. Some little time later the 
settlement was re-established, but it was again abandoned 
in 1803. A few overgrown ruins and traces of old 
clearings are all that now remain to mark the spot. 
Labuan. 
The island of Labuan is situated on the north-west 
coast of Borneo, opposite the mouth of Brunei Bay. It is 
12 miles in length, and has an area of 32 square miles 
only. It was occupied in 1846 by the British, after 
difficulties with the Sultan of Brunei, and Sir James 
Brooke was appointed the first Governor. The import¬ 
ance of having some station, especially where coal was 
obtainable, midway between China and Singapore was 
