By this time the patience of the creditor was exhausted.  Despoiled of his goods, finding that, despite his remonstrances, the Dyaks were cruelly oppressed, and that piracy was encouraged, he resolved to try the effect of threats.  He repaired on board his yacht, loaded her guns with grape and canister, and brought her broadside to bear upon the Rajah’s palace.  Then taking a small, but well-armed guard, he sought an interview with Muda Hassim.  The terror of that functionary was extreme.  The native tribes openly sided with their English friend.  The Chinese residents remained obstinately neutral.  The Malays, between cowardice and treachery, afforded him no efficient support.  To crown all, his resolute and incensed ally had only to wave his hand to bring down upon him swift destruction.  “After this demonstration, things went cheerily to a conclusion.”  Muda Hassim, finding that his creditor was inflexible, and being unable or unwilling to pay for the goods which he had fraudulently obtained, offered in payment of all debts to surrender the government.  The offer was accepted, the agreement drawn up, signed, sealed, guns fired and flags waved, and on September 24, 1841, Mr. Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak.  In August of the following year the Sultan solemnly confirmed the agreement.

The territory thus strangely passing into the hands of a private English gentleman was a tract of country bordering upon the sea sixty miles, and extending inland from seventy to eighty miles.  Situated at the northeastern extremity of Borneo, pierced by two small, but navigable rivers, its position is most favorable for commerce.  Its soil is deep and rich, yielding under any proper culture large crops of all tropical products.  Its forests are filled with trees fit for shipbuilding, and abound in that variety from which is obtained the gutta percha of commerce.  The hills are rich in iron and tin of the best quality.  The mountain streams wash down gold.  In the beds of smaller rivers are found diamonds, in such profusion that most of the Malays wear them set in rings and other ornaments.  From this single province comes nearly the whole supply of antimony in the world.  “I do not believe,” says a resident, “that in the same given space there can be found so great mineral and vegetable wealth in any land in the whole world.”

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With what sentiments the new Rajah entered upon his duties can be best understood by a perusal of his familiar letters.  He writes to his mother:  “Do not start when I say that I am going to settle in Borneo, that I am about to endeavor to plant there a mixed colony amid a wild but not unvirtuous race, and to become the pioneer of European knowledge and improvement.  The diffusion of civilization, commerce, and religion through so vast an island as Borneo, I call a grand object,—­so grand that self is quite lost when I consider it; and even failure would be much better than the non-attempt.”