Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/440

 BROOKE, JAMES (1803–1868), rájá of Saráwak, second son of Thomas Brooke, of the Bengal civil service, was born at Benares, and was educated at the grammar school at Norwich, under Mr. Edward Valpy, a brother of the famous Dr. Valpy of Reading. During Brooke's school days Dr. Samuel Parr, who at one time had been the headmaster, was a frequent visitor at the school. 'Old Crome' was the drawing master, while Sir Archdale Wilson, the captor of Delhi in 1857, and George Borrow were among Brooke's schoolfellows. He was a boy of marked generosity, truthfulness, and daring. On one occasion he saved the life of a school-fellow who had fallen into the river Wensum. He ended his school life somewhat abruptly by running away, and at the age of sixteen was appointed a cadet of infantry in Bengal. After serving for three years with a native infantry regiment, he was appointed to the commissariat; and on the outbreak of the first war with Burma, he formed and drilled a body of native volunteer cavalry, which he commanded in an action at Rangpur in Assam, receiving on that occasion a wound in the lungs, which led to his being invalided home with a wound pension of 70l. a year. After an absence of upwards of four years he returned to India; but being unable, owing to an unusually long voyage, to reach Bengal within the prescribed period of five years, he resigned the East India Company's service in 1830, returning to England in the ship in which he had gone out, and visiting, in the course of his voyage, the Straits settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, China, and Sumatra. During this voyage he seems to have formed the projects which determined his subsequent career. Returning to Bath, where his family resided, in the latter part of 1831, he remained in England until 1834, when he purchased a small brig, and made a voyage to China. In the following year his father died, and Brooke, having inherited a fortune of 30,000l., purchased a schooner of 142 tons, in which, after a trip to the Mediterranean, he sailed on 16 Dec. 1838 for Borneo.

Brooke's motives in undertaking this voyage appear to have been partly love of adventure, and largely the desire to introduce commerce, as well as British ascendency, into Borneo. A memorandum which he wrote upon the subject before starting upon the expedition will be found in a compilation of his private letters, edited by a friend. After a short halt at Singapore, Brooke proceeded in his yacht to Saráwak, on the north-west coast of Borneo, landing at Kuching, the chief town, on 15 Aug. 1839. Saráwak—a tract of country measuring at that time about sixty miles in length by fifty in breadth, but since considerably enlarged by territorial additions made during the lifetime of Brooke—was then subject to the Malay sultan of Brunei, the nominal ruler of the whole of the island, except a part in the south, which had come into the possession of the Dutch. At the time of Brooke's arrival a rebellion was in progress, induced by the tyranny of the officials of the sultan, who had recently deputed his uncle, Muda Hassim, to assume the government and to restore order. Brooke was courteously received by Muda Hassim. His first visit was short; but he seems to have then laid the foundations of the influence which he subsequently acquired over the inhabitants, including the Malay governor, Muda Hassim. On this occasion he surveyed 150 miles of coast, visited many of the rivers, and established a friendly intercourse with the Malay tribes on the coast, spending ten days among a tribe of Dayáks, the aboriginal inhabitants of the island. In the latter part of the same year he visited the island of Celebes. He there astonished the inhabitants, the Bujis—a race much addicted to field sports—by his horsemanship and skill in shooting.

Revisiting Saráwak in the autumn of 1840, Brooke took an active part in the suppression of the rebellion, which was still going on, impressing the natives by his gallantry and readiness of resource, and so entirely gaining the confidence of Muda Hassim that the latter voluntarily offered him the government of the country, which he assumed on 24 Sept. 1841. In July of the following year he repaired to Brunei, and obtained from the sultan the confirmation of his appointment as rájá of Saráwak, in which office he was formally installed at Kuching on 18 Aug. 1842. Sir Spenser St. John's 'Life of Brooke' gives a graphic account of the installation, which very nearly became a scene of bloodshed, owing to the excitement of some of the followers of the late rájá, and their animosity towards a chief named Makota, whose tyranny had done much to bring about the rebellion, and who had obstructed Brooke in his efforts to reduce the country to order, and to improve the administration (, Life of Sir James Brooke, 1879, p. 70).

Brooke's administrative reforms were very simple, but thoroughly well suited to the people. One of the causes of the rebellion had been a system of forced trade, under which the inhabitants were compelled to buy at a fixed, and often an exorbitant, price, commodities sold to them by the chiefs. In default of payment their sons and daughters,