RAJAH BROOKE.
Tax Government having declined to do anything to compensate the Rajah Brooke for his losses in connexion with Sarawak, a public committee has taken up the subject. The case is a hard one. Sir James Brooke, a gentleman of fortune, undertook an enterprise similar to that which a Drake or a Raleigh might have accepted, only in a far more modern and regular form. lle obtained from the Sultan of Borneo a cession of the district of Sarawak; he founded there a British settlement; he established a local Go- vernment; he put an effectual control upon the pirates that infested the neighbourhood ; and then he looked at home for the royal acceptance of the territory which he had thus acquired. Sarawak is a good station, that might be made a valuable British outpost in the Indian Seas. But the British Government shrinks from "the expense "; and although in early days Sir James Brooke had some right to regard himself as encouraged, he is now repudiated, and told to put up with his knighthood and losses. The committee which has volunteered to enroll itself in his behalf comprises many of the most influential names of all parties, the object being to collect such a fund as shall in some degree compensate him for the loss of the fortune which he has expended in an enterprise so fruitless to himself.
Previous page
