But before legal papers could be drawn, the whole policy of the court of Bruni had changed.  The Sultan was a monarch with “the head of an idiot and the heart of a pirate.”  All his sympathies were with violence and robbery.  Under the influence of others, he had agreed to use his power against piracy, and had even been brought to say, in fawning phrase, that “he wanted the English near to him.”  But he suddenly repented of his good purposes.  In a fit of Oriental fickleness he caused Muda Hassim and all who favored the English alliance to be put to death, despatched a messenger secretly to administer poison to Mr. Brooke, and entered into even closer friendship than before with the piratical tribes.  A confidential servant of Pangeran Budrudeen, the brother of Muda Hassim, with difficulty escaped, and fled to Sarawak.  He related that his master had bravely resisted, but, overpowered by numbers and desperately wounded, had committed to his charge a ring, bidding him deliver it to Rajah Brooke as a dying memento, and to tell him that he died faithful to his pledges to the Queen; then, setting fire to a keg of powder, he blew himself with his family into the air.

These tidings filled Mr. Brooke with grief and indignation.  Every passion of his fiery and energetic nature was aroused.  He repaired on board the British fleet, which, upon receipt of this news, had put into Sarawak.  Without delay the fleet sailed for Bruni.  An immediate explanation was demanded of the Sultan.  The reply was a volley from the forts which commanded the river.  Without ceremony the ships returned the fire.  In a brief time these strongholds were stormed, and Bruni itself was at the mercy of the enemy.  The Sultan fled to the swamps.  Sailing out of Borneo River, the fleet swept along the whole northern coast, taking in rapid succession the forts of the Illanum pirates who had instigated the murders at Bruni, and inflicting upon them a signal chastisement.

By this time the Sultan wearied of jungles and sighed for his palace.  He wrote a cringing letter, promising amendment, agreeing to ratify all his former engagements, and as a sign of his true penitence was ready even to pay royal honors to the memory of the men whom he had slain.  There was no further difficulty in respect to the cession of Labuan, and it was taken possession of December 24, 1846,—­Mr. Brooke being appointed governor.  It is said that the possession of this island goes far to make England mistress of the Chinese Sea,—­a statement easily to be credited by any one conversant with English policy.  At any rate, he who observes how, at apparently insignificant stations,—­on little islands, on a marshy peninsula,—­mere dots on the map,—­England has established her commercial depots,—­at Hong-Kong in the north, at Labuan in the centre, and at Singapore in the south,—­will gain new respect for the sagacity which in the councils of the mother country always lurks behind the red-tapism of which we hear so much.