The Eastern Archipelago: Cession of Sarawak to the English Adventurer Brooke—A New Sovereignty in Borneo

From our Overseas Correspondent at Singapore, we receive intelligence of no small moment to the commerce of the Eastern seas. The Sultan of Brunei, whose ancient sway once extended over the whole of Borneo and the neighbouring isles, hath at last yielded to the pressure of circumstance and the persuasive force of English cannon. By a formal instrument signed at the palace of the Sultan on the twenty-fourth day of September, the province of Sarawak, a territory of rich jungle and winding river, is ceded in perpetuity to Mr. James Brooke, an adventurer of courage and no small political sagacity. This gentleman, having rendered the Sultan signal service in the suppression of a rebellion among the Dyak tribes, now receives as his reward a domain larger than many a German principality.

The circumstances attending this transaction are such as to stir the imagination of every reader of travel and discovery. Sarawak lies upon the north-western coast of that vast and pestilential island, where the mercury seldom falls below eighty degrees, and where the air is heavy with the exhalations of mangrove swamp and decaying vegetation. Its rivers are the highways of a barbarous trade in antimony, sago, and birds' nests; its interior is peopled by head-hunting savages, whose longhouses rise upon piles above the muddy tide. Mr. Brooke, it is reported, hath already taken possession of his capital at Kuching, hoisting the union flag above a stockade of ironwood, and dispensing justice after the manner of an English magistrate, though surrounded by the skulls of his enemies.

Our readers will not fail to remark the singularity of this event. A private Englishman, without commission from his own government, hath erected a sovereignty in the East, and that sovereignty is now recognised by the native prince from whom it was wrested. The Dutch, who claim suzerainty over these waters, are said to be much discomposed; the merchants of Singapore, on the other hand, foresee a new emporium for their opium and their cottons. What the end of this adventure shall be, whether it shall prove a blessing to the benighted heathen or a mere field for the ambition of a single man, time alone must determine. But of this we may be certain: the map of the Eastern Archipelago is altered, and the name of Brooke is written upon it in characters that shall not soon be effaced.