Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/335

interest. In the early part of 1845 Muda Hassim appears to have been in favour with the Sultan, and was publicly announced as successor to the throne with the title of Sultan Muda (muda=young, the usual Malay title for the heir apparent to the Crown), and the document recognising the appointment of Mr. Brooke as the Queen's Confidential Agent in Borneo was written in the name of the Sultan and of Muda Hassim conjointly, and concludes by saying that the two writers express the hope that through the Queen's assistance they will be enabled to settle the Government of Borneo. In April, 1846, however, Mr. Brooke received the startling intelligence that in the December, or January previous, the Sultan had ordered the murder of his uncle Muda Hassim and of several of the Ràja's brothers and nobles of his party, in all some thirteen Ràjas and many of their followers. Muda Hassim, finding resistance useless, retreated to his boat and ignited a cask of powder, but the explosion not killing him, he blew his brains out with a pistol. His brother, Pangeran Budrudin, one of the most enlightened nobles in Brunai, likewise terminated his existence by an explosion of gunpowder. Representations being made to Sir Thomas Cochrane, the Admiral in command of the station, he proceeded in person to Borneo with a squadron of eight vessels, including two steamers. The Sultan, foreseeing the punishment that was inevitable, erected some well-placed batteries. to defend his town. Only the two steamers and one sailing vessel of war, together with boats from the other vessels and a force of six hundred men were able to ascend the river and, such was the rotten state of the kingdom of Borneo Proper and so unwarlike the disposition of its degenerate people that after firing a few shots, whereby two of the British force were killed and a few wounded, the batteries were deserted, the Sultan and his followers fled to the jungle, and the capital remained at the Admiral's disposition. Captain Rodney Mundy, accompanied by Mr. Brooke, with a force of five hundred men was despatched in pursuit of His Highness, but it is needless to add that, though the difficulties of marching through a trackless country under a tropical downpour of