After a tedious voyage of nearly six months, the Royalist reached Singapore, June 1, 1839.  While Mr. Brooke was engaged in refitting his yacht, and anxiously revolving in his mind how he should obtain permission to penetrate into the neighboring kingdom of Borneo, he learned that Muda Hassim, uncle of the Sultan, and Rajah of Sarawak, the northwestern province of Borneo, had displayed great humanity towards a crew of shipwrecked Englishmen.  On receiving this information he started at once for Sarawak, hoping to get some hold upon the Rajah, and by such help to pursue his researches.  But the time of his visit was most unfortunate.  The whole province was in a state of open rebellion; so that, while he was received courteously, and permitted to make some local surveys, nothing of importance could be accomplished.  Baffled and wearied by delay, he sailed back to Singapore, and from thence to Celebes, where he remained several months, engaged in extensive explorations, and in collecting specimens to illustrate the natural history of that island.

Mr. Brooke returned from Celebes worn out and sick, and was obliged to remain at Singapore several months to recruit his strength.  In August, 1840, he made a second visit to Sarawak, intending to tarry there a few days, and then proceed homeward by the way of Manilla and China.  “I have done fully as much as I promised the public,” he writes.  He found things in much the same state as when he left.  No progress had been made in the suppression of the rebellion.  Few lives indeed had been lost, but the most bloody war could hardly have produced worse results.  The country was filled with combatants.  Every straggler was cut off.  Violence and rapine were the law.  Trade and agriculture languished.  A rich province was fast relapsing into a wilderness; and all its people were beginning to suffer alike for shelter and sustenance.  As our hero was about to set sail, the Rajah opened his whole heart to him.  His prospects were anything but flattering.  He found himself unequal to the reduction of the rebels.  He was surrounded by traitors.  At the court of the Sultan, a hostile cabal, taking advantage of his ill-fortune, threatened his power and his life.  In this strait, he besought his visitor to remain and give him aid, promising in event of success to confer upon him the government of the province.  After a few days’ reflection, Mr. Brooke, believing, as he declares, that the cause of the Sultan was just, believing also that what the whole people needed most was peace, and that peace would place him in a position to render them the greatest service, acceded to this request, without, however, be it observed, binding Muda Hassim to any precise stipulations concerning the government.