Brooke, SIR JAMES

Brooke, SIR JAMES, rajah of Sarawak, in Borneo, and governor of Labuan—a man strongly imbued with the spirit of the old adventurers of the Elizabethan time—was born at Benares, 29th April 1803, and educated at Norwich. He entered the East India army (1819), was seriously wounded in the Burmese war, and returned home on furlough (1826). The voyage out to join his regiment was so protracted that he was unable to reach India before his furlough had expired; his appointments consequently lapsed, and he quitted the service in 1830 and returned to England. He now conceived the idea of putting down piracy in the Eastern Archipelago, and of carrying civilisation to the savages inhabiting these islands. He purchased a small brig and made a voyage to China. On his father's death (1835) he inherited £30,000, and after a cruise in the Mediterranean, sailed in a schooner-yacht from London for Sarawak, a province on the north-west coast of Borneo, in 1838. When he arrived there (1839), the uncle of the sultan of Borneo was engaged in a war with some rebel tribes. Brooke lent his assistance, and in return had the title of Rajah and Governor of Sarawak conferred upon him, 24th September 1841, the native governor being forced to resign. Brooke immediately set about reforming the government, instituted free trade, and framed a new code of laws. The murderous custom of head-hunting, prevalent among the Dyaks, he declared to be a crime punishable with death, and vigorously set about the extirpation of piracy. Revisiting England in 1847, he received a warm welcome, and was invited by the Queen to Windsor. He was created a K.C.B. in the year following; and the island of Labuan, near Sarawak, having been purchased by the British government, he was appointed governor and commander-in-chief, and British commissioner and consul-general in Borneo. Certain charges brought in 1851 against Brooke in the House of Commons in connection with the receipt of 'head-money' for the slain pirates, were declared by a Royal Commission to be unsubstantiated; the 'head-money' was received, not by Brooke and his associates, but by the British ships-of-war that had co-operated with him. In 1857 Brooke, who had been superseded in the governorship of Labuan, but who still acted as rajah of Sarawak for the sultan of Borneo, was attacked at night in his house by a large body of Chinese, who were irritated at his efforts to prevent opium-smuggling. The Chinese committed great havoc on his property, but Brooke soon collected a force of natives, attacked the Chinese, and defeated them in several successive fights. He was in England in 1858, returned to Borneo in 1861, and visited England again twice before his death. He had the satisfaction of seeing the independence of Sarawak recognised by the English government. The country prospered greatly under his régime; he found the chief town a place of some 1000 inhabitants, he left it a town of 25,000; and the exports to Singapore, which in 1840 amounted to £25,000, were in 1858, £300,000. Brooke died at Burrator, in Devonshire, 11th June 1868, and was succeeded at Sarawak by his nephew. See SARAWAK; also Letters of Sir James Brooke (1853), Jacob's Raja of Sarawak (1876), St John's Life of Sir James Brooke (1879).