The following year, on July 10, Hume moved for a Royal Commission to enquire into the proceedings of Sir James Brooke, but this was negatived by 230 votes to 19. He went a little further this time, and drew harrowing pictures of "cruel butcheries, and brutal murders of the helpless and defenceless." Sir James Brooke, he said, attacked none but the poor Dayaks, and even their wives and children were destroyed. He even went so far as to deny that the Saribas were head-hunters.
Gladstone bore high testimony to the Rajah's character and motives. His entire confidence in the Rajah's honour and integrity led him to accept his statements with unqualified and unreserved belief. He adjudged the Dayaks of being addicted to barbarous warfare and piracy, and maintained that there were not sufficient grounds for the motion, against which he voted. He, however, contended that most of the pirates were killed when not resisting, and had been deliberately sacrificed in the act of fleeing. This unhappily gave rise to doubts, which subsequently caused him to entirely change his opinions, and to completely veer round to the other side.
Lord Palmerston denounced the charges against the Rajah "as malignant and persevering persecution of an honourable man," and Mr. Drummond rightly denied "that, from beginning to end, this motion had any other foundation than a personal determination to ruin Sir James Brooke." "The whole of this transaction from first to last was a very discreditable affair," he said. "The gentlemen of England echoed him,"[174] and the nation too, judging by the tone of the press, which (with the exception of one or two papers), from _The Times_ downwards, supported the Rajah.[175]
Her Majesty's Government had notified the Rajah of their approval of all he had done, and he was instructed to follow the same course should a similar necessity arise.
But Wise, Hume, Cobden, and their adherents were only checked, and, huffed by their defeats, continued their efforts to ruin the Rajah's character and administration with increased bitterness, unfortunately in the end to obtain a partial success; but we will leave this subject for a while, to turn briefly to events in Sarawak.
As a commentary on Mr. Cobden's assertion that the natives were being driven out of Sarawak, the population of the raj in 1850 had increased to 50,000 from 8000 in 1840, and this increase was due to immigration from the neighbouring countries, where the people had been the constant prey of pirates, head-hunters, and their own oppressive rulers, and for these over-burdened people the Rajah had supplied a haven. The Chinese colony in upper Sarawak was augmented by the arrival of five thousand Chinese refugees from Pemangkat in Dutch territory, who had come to Sarawak to escape the tyranny of their more powerful neighbours and rivals, the Chinese of Montrado. These latter had successfully rebelled against the authority of the Dutch, and were now oppressing their weaker neighbours, both Chinese and Dayak. The Kayan and Kenyahs of the Baram, who had been in rebellion against the Sultan, had sent messages offering to accept the Rajah as their chief, and those of the Rejang assisted in building the new fort at the mouth of the Kanowit. This fort was erected by the Rajah to protect the inhabitants of the Rejang delta, and of Oya and Muka, by blocking the egress by the Kanowit river to the Sekrang and Saribas Dayaks. All these countries, including the Sekrang, where a station had already been established, were under the _de jure_ rule of the Sultan, but the inhabitants now looked upon the Rajah as their ruler. The Sultan had long been helpless to govern the disturbed districts; his authority was not recognised by the population, and the chiefs appointed by him acted to gain their own ends, the enriching of themselves at the expense of the people. The Sultan had placed himself in the Rajah's hands, and was well pleased that he should pacify and introduce order into these districts, more perhaps in his own interests than in those of his own people, for whose welfare he cared little; they paid him no revenue, and that he hoped the Rajah would secure for him.