THE LAST OF THE PIRATES
As we have already noticed, the action of the _Nemesis_ with a fleet of
Balanini pirates off Bruni in May, 1847, following on the destruction by
Admiral Cochrane of the pirate strongholds in North Borneo, for some
years effectually checked the marauding expeditions of the pirates down
the north-west coast of Borneo. This lesson was shortly afterwards
followed up by the destruction of the Balanini strongholds by the
Spanish, who a few years later destroyed Tianggi, or Sug, the principal
town in Sulu. The Dutch had also been active. The pirates were crippled
and scattered, and a period of immunity from their depredations followed
these vigorous measures. But the efforts of the three powers mainly
concerned in the suppression of piracy subsequently relaxed, and the
pirates, who had gradually established themselves in other places on the
coast of Borneo and in neighbouring islands, gained courage by the
absence of patrolling cruisers, and again burst forth.
[Illustration:
SULU KRIS.]
The year 1858 was marked by a great revival of Lanun and Balagnini
piracy. Among others, a Spanish vessel was taken in the Sulu seas by
Panglima Taupan of Tawi-Tawi: a young girl, the daughter of a
Spanish merchant, was the only one on board not massacred. Taupan
took her for a wife; and, as I wrote at the time,—"Alas for the
chivalry of the British Navy! Sir ——, who was present when this
information was given, said it was a Spanish affair, not ours."
Another fruit of the Commission—officers dared not act.[269]
No more terrible fate can be conceived than that to which this poor
girl, who had witnessed the murder of her father, was dragged, but had a
British man-of-war been present it is doubtful whether her Commander
would have interfered, unless he were prepared to sacrifice duty to
compassion. For, after the notorious Commission, the Admiralty had
issued stringent commands that unless a vessel should have, within view,
attacked some _British_ vessel or subject, or that there was proof that
she had done so, she was not to be molested. It was a revival of the
former order of 1844, which, though it contained the same strict limit,
allowed some latitude to a Commander.
The Rajah was rightly of opinion that
These orders are a direct violation of our treaties with Holland and
with Bruni.[270] Such a course of action with pirates has never been
pursued before by any civilised nation, and is manifestly calculated
to destroy our commerce, wherever it may be practically acted upon.
Let either the Lanun or Chinese pirates know that we shall not
molest them unless they commit depredations on the English flag, and
they would sweep away a million of commerce on these seas, which was
bound to English markets in native bottoms.
Though the inhabitants and commerce of neighbouring countries continued
to suffer, up to 1861 the pirates gave Sarawak a wide berth. Then they
began to appear on the coast again, but the little Sarawak gunboats were
on the alert. The principal object of the pirates was not to fight, but
to obtain plunder and captives, and they afforded the gunboats only a
few long shots. Still they managed to capture a few people, including
some natives of Madras, British subjects. But in 1862 they were out in
increased numbers.
In that year Captain Brooke, the Rajah Muda, met with a great loss, his
second wife died at Kuching, after having given birth to her first
child.[271] This occurred on May 6, and after a few days it was thought
by his friends that he might find some mental relief in change of scene
and active work. Accordingly he was persuaded to undertake a voyage to
Bintulu, and Bishop McDougall volunteered to accompany him so as to
cheer and support him. Mr. Helms, agent of the Borneo Company, joined
the party and was dropped at Muka. On the second day after the arrival
of Mr. Helms, and when the Rajah Muda had left in the _Rainbow_, a
piratical fleet of Lanuns, consisting of six large and many small
vessels, appeared off the mouth of the Muka river and blockaded the
place. For a couple of days they remained there, making excursions on
land, and capturing thirty-two persons. Mr. Helms despatched a party of
natives in a fast boat that succeeded in eluding the pirates, though
they narrowly escaped capture, to make known the state of affairs to the
Rajah Muda, and they found him still at Bintulu.
On May 25, the little screw-steamer _Rainbow_, carrying two 9-pounder
guns, steamed out of Bintulu, and at once engaged a detachment of three
Lanun prahus, one of which was sunk, and another captured; the third was
engaged by the _Jolly Bachelor_ and driven on the rocks off Kedurong
point, and her crew taking refuge ashore were hunted down and killed by
the Bintulu people. Learning from the captives the direction taken by
the remainder of the fleet, the Rajah Muda stood out to sea in search of
them.
After an hour or so, wrote the Bishop, the look-out at the mast-head
reported three vessels in sight, right ahead. At this time it was
quite calm, and when we came near enough to see them from the deck,
we saw them sweep up to the central vessel and lay themselves side
by side, with their bows at us, as if they meant to engage us in
that position. However, as we went on towards them the sea-breeze
sprang up, so they changed their tactics, and opened out in line
with their broadsides towards us to rake us as we came up. Our plan
was, as before, to shake them first and run them down in detail.
Brooke did not give the order to fire until we came within 250 yards
of them, and they opened their lelahs (brass swivel-guns) upon us
some time before we commenced firing. They fired briskly and did not
attempt to get away, even when we got all our guns to bear upon
them; but as we steamed round to get our stem fairly at the
sternmost vessel, they seemed to think we were retreating, and
pelted us with shot more sharply than ever, directing their chief
attention to us on the poop, where we had one man killed and two
severely wounded in no time, and we should have suffered more if the
temporary bulwark of planks, etc., had not stopped their balls.
After the first prahu was run down, I had to go below to attend to
our own wounded as they came in, but I plainly felt the concussion
as we went into the others. One of the vessels was cut right in two;
the steamer went straight on without backing, and she sank the
other, one half on each side of us. She was the largest, and had a
valuable cargo, and much gold and bags of Dutch rupees. The pirates
fought to the last, and then would not surrender, but jumped into
the sea with their arms; and the poor captives, who were all made
fast below as we came up to engage them, were doubtless glad when
our stem opened the sides of their ships and thus let them out of
their prison. Few, comparatively, were drowned, being mostly all
good swimmers. All those who were not lashed to the vessels or
killed by the Illanuns escaped. Our decks were soon covered with
those we picked up, men of every race and nation in the
Archipelago,[272] who had been captured by the pirates in their
cruise. One poor Chinese came swimming alongside, waving his tail
over his head, and the other captives held up the cords round their
necks to show they were slaves, lest they should be mistaken for
Illanuns and shot or left to their fate. We soon picked up the poor
fellows, and the Chinaman came under my hands, being shot through
the arm. Many of the pirates we took were badly wounded, some
mortally, the greater part were killed or disabled by our fire
before we closed.
It is a marvel how these poor creatures live at all under the
terrible tortures and ill-treatment they endure, sometimes for
months, before they reach their destination and settle down as
slaves to the worst of masters—very demons, not men. The captives
state that when the pirates take a vessel, they kill every one who
makes any resistance, plunder and sink their boats or ships, and
when those they spare are first taken on board their own prahus,
they put a rattan, or black rope-halter, round their necks, beat
them with a flat piece of bamboo on the elbows and knees and the
muscles of the arms and legs, so that they cannot use them to swim
or run away. After a while, when sufficiently tamed, they are put to
the sweeps and made to row in gangs, with one of their
fellow-captives as a mandore or foreman over them, who is furnished
with a rattan to keep them at their work; and if he does not do this
effectually, he is "krissed" and thrown overboard, and another man
put in his place. If any of the rowers jump overboard, the pirates
have a supply of three-pronged and barbed spears, with long bamboo
handles, ready to throw at them. When hit by one of these they can
neither swim nor run, and are easily recaptured. They are made to
row in relays night and day, and to keep them awake they put cayenne
pepper in their eyes or cut them with their knives and put pepper in
their wounds.
We found, on reckoning up, that we had picked up 165 people, and
that 150 to 200 men had got to land from the vessels we sank near
the shore. In every pirate vessel there were forty or or fifty
Illanuns, fighting men, all well armed, each having a rifle or
musket besides his native weapons, and from 60 to 70 captives, many
of whom were killed by the pirates when they found themselves
beaten; among them two women. Seven of the women and four of the
children were our own Muka people[273] and it was indeed most
touching to witness the joy and gratitude of them and their
relations when we returned them to their friends. Of the Illanuns we
captured 32, ten of them boys. Some have died since of their wounds,
the remainder are in irons in the fort here. The boys have been
given out by Brooke for five years to respectable people to train
and bring up. Very few of the pirates live to tell the tale; some
captives assured us in the boat they were in there were only two out
of the forty fighting-men who had not been killed or wounded by our
fire, when we gave them the stem and cut them down.
Under the present system at Labuan, and the difficulties thrown in
the way of our men-of-war against attacking these wretches when
they are known to be in the neighbourhood, England with all her
power and philanthropy is doing absolutely nothing towards putting
an end to this abominable and most extensive system of rapine,
murder, and slavery. It is impossible to estimate the destruction
and the havoc, the murder and the amount of slave-dealing carried
on by these wretches in their yearly cruises. The prahus we met
were but one of the many squadrons that leave Sulu every year.
Seven months had these wretches been devastating the villages on
the coast, capturing slaves, taking and sinking trading vessels.
Their course was along the coasts of Celebes, down the Macassar
Straits to Madura and then along the Northern coast of Java, and
the South of Borneo, up the Caramata passage to Borneo, to go home
by Sarawak and Labuan. The other five pirate vessels parted
company from them to go over to Balliton[274] and Banca Straits,
and doubtless they too will carry their depredations right up into
the Straits of Singapore and pick up English subjects and injure
English trade, as those we met have done. But apart from all our
local feelings, and danger from these people, it makes an
Englishman out here ashamed to feel that his own dear country,
which we would fain regard as the liberator of the slave and the
avenger of the wronged, is in truth doing nothing against the
system, fraught with incalculable misery to so large a section of
the human race. For it must be remembered that the slavery these
people suffer is far more crushing to them than the African who is
taken as a savage to serve civilised and at least, nominally,
Christian masters; but these are generally well-to-do men of
civilised nations who are made the slaves of utter fiends, who
work and torture them to death one year, only to replace them by
fresh victims whom they capture the next. It is indeed _vae
victis_ with them, and I think it is the duty of every Christian
man and every Christian nation to do all that can be done to rid
the earth of such horrible and dangerous monsters, and to punish
the Sultan of Sulu and all who abet and aid them. The Dutch and
Spaniards are always doing something, but not enough, and during
the last four or five years, these pirate fleets have been
gradually getting more and more numerous and daring on these
coasts, and now it is for England to rouse herself and complete
the work of putting them down. Labuan is near their haunts and it
might be done from thence. A few thousands spent out here yearly
for the purpose would, I believe in my heart, soon effect more
real and lasting good than the millions which are being spent on
the coast of Africa. All honour is due to Sir James Brooke and his
nephew, the Rajah Muda, and the other officers of the Sarawak
government, who in spite of misrepresentation and factious
opposition, through evil report and good report, have persevered
for years in constant, steady, and systematic efforts to put down
piracy on this coast and chastise these villainous marauders
whenever they come into Sarawak waters. If the English government
will now act with and assist us, we shall soon clear the Sarawak
and Labuan waters of these pests. Assisted by the knowledge and
experience of our natives, the work would be done surely and
effectually; but single-handed the Sarawak government
notwithstanding all it has done, cannot carry it out. We want
means; if England or Englishmen will give us that, we shall gladly
do the work, and feel that we are delivering our fellow-men, and
doing our duty to God, who has commanded us to free the captive
and deliver the oppressed. While at the same time we shall be
averting a danger which is ever threatening us at our own doors,
and has so long crippled the energies and resources of this
country.
The original fleet of Lanuns had consisted of eleven prahus, but off the
western coast of Borneo five had parted company and stayed behind to
cruise around Banka and Belitong. Shortly afterwards one of her
Majesty's ships fell in with three of them and attempted to take them,
but the pirates managed to effect their escape.
On board the little steamer were at the time eight Europeans, the
stalwart Pangiran Matusin, a fighting haji, and fifteen natives. But
though the pirates were far more numerous, and were all well armed, yet
the steamer had the preponderating advantage of her screw, enabling her
to ram each native vessel, cut her in half and send her to the bottom,
so that there could not be doubt for a moment what would be the outcome
of such a conflict.
The results of the fight were these:—
Pirates killed or drowned 190
Escaped 19
Brought prisoners to Sarawak 31
———
240
===
Captives killed or drowned 140
Captives liberated 194
Captives run away into the jungle, and subsequently rescued 56
———
390
The prisoners, with the exception of the lads, were all executed. The
lads were put to work on the gunboats, and became excellent and
trustworthy sailors—one, who was the son of a Lanun of rank,
subsequently commanded the present Rajah's former yacht the _Aline_.
Some of the captives were Dutch subjects, and some were British subjects
from Singapore. In the captured pirate prahu there were found five Dutch
and one Spanish ensign.
Sailing along past the delta of the Rejang, when off the pretty little
village of Palo, which was hidden from their view, the pirates had
observed a long canoe laden with nipah palm leaves, with a man in the
stern and a woman in the bows, paddling for dear life to escape. A light
canoe manned by half-a-dozen men was at once despatched in chase, and
quickly overhauled the poor couple, the man crying out that he
surrendered, and the woman screaming with fear. It was a pretty example
of the biter bit—a neatly contrived trap. Gliding alongside to secure
their apparently helpless captives, without troubling to exchange
paddles for weapons, to their amazement the pirates saw an upheaval of
the leaves and several armed men spring up, together with the steersman
and the disguised man in the bows. This startling development took the
pirates so completely by surprise that they were all speared before they
could seize their weapons. The Melanaus then quickly disappeared up a
creek. Their leader was the late Atoh, a young man then, who afterwards
became the Government chief of Palo. He is perhaps better known to the
present generation as Haji Abdul Rahman.
The following translation of a paper written by a Nakoda Amzah, one of
the rescued captives, and found amongst his papers after his death,
gives a good account of the voyage of this fleet, and of its
destruction. He was a Kampar (Sumatra) Malay, who lived in Sarawak since
his rescue. He, his grandson, and another Malay were killed in the
Rejang in 1880 by a head-hunting party of Dayaks. He was noted for his
courage. He had been twice before captured by pirates. In this
translation the word "pirate" is substituted for Bajau, Lanun, and
Balanini, which the writer uses indiscriminately, and no doubt the crews
of the piratical prahus were an admixture of these tribes.
Thursday, the 17th day of the month Sawal in the year of the Hejira
1278 (A.D. 1862). On this day Nakoda Amzah who was on a voyage to
Samarang, with a crew of twelve men, was attacked off the mouth of
the Jali by piratical prahus. These must have been eleven in all;
they afterwards separated, six going along the coast of Borneo, and
five coasting to Bangka. The attack was sudden, and they did their
best to beat the pirates off, but after having fought them for about
an hour, three of Nakoda Amzah's men were killed, and he himself was
wounded in the head by a bullet. They then surrendered and were
captured by the pirates; their own prahu was destroyed, and they
were transferred to the pirates' prahus. The pirates then sailed to
Pulo Kelam, where they hauled their prahus up a creek out of sight,
there being a Dutch war vessel out of Benjarmasin on the look out
for piratical prahus. This vessel steamed round the island without
detecting them. They stayed here three days, and on the fourth
launched their prahus and sailed northwards. The next day they again
saw the steamer to the westward, so bore down to the island of
Jempodi, where they stayed in hiding for six days. Sailing on,
between Pakar and Kaiong the pirates captured a sampan with five
men, and they also captured a woman. In two days more they reached
the mouth of Katapang, and Kandang Krabu, where they made an
unsuccessful raid; but they captured two men who were out fishing.
Two days afterwards they arrived at and attacked Pulo Kumbang, but
the people were away inland, so no captures were effected. The next
day they made a descent on Sati point, and captured three Chinese
and three Malays. They sailed on for two days more, and then tried
at Mas Tiga, but did not succeed in capturing any one. Two days
afterwards they fell in with a Dutch Government coastguard,
commanded by one Rasip. They engaged the coastguard, but owing to a
strong westerly wind were forced to leave her. After four days,
between Karamata and Pulo Datu, they fell in with a Sambas prahu
belonging to Haji Bakir, she proved to be from Belitong, loaded with
dry fish, sago, etc. The pirates captured her and her crew of five
men. The whole of the next day they were chased by a war steamer,
but they escaped by keeping in shoal water, and by night falling.
Five days afterwards, off Cape Baiong, they fell in with Nakoda
Daud's prahu from Sambas, but did not molest her. Three days later
they had passed Cape Datu, and brought up for two days in Serabang
bay and read the Ruah Selamat.[275] A three days' sail brought them
to Cape Sirik, just before reaching which they fell in with two
prahus which they attacked but were beaten off; they also chased a
small boat but that escaped inshore. The next night at Bruit they
killed two Melanaus, and captured two men and two women. Two nights
after, off the mouth of Oya, they captured four Melanau women and
two men. At Muka, which they reached next day, they captured four
Chinese and two Melanaus, and the next night they brought up off
Bintulu.[276] The following day was a fatal day for the pirates, for
in the morning a steamer (the _Rainbow_) came out of Bintulu
accompanied by a pinnace (the _Jolly Bachelor_). There was a pirate
prahu lying close in shore and upon her the steamer immediately
fired; twice the steamer fired and then the prahu's crew ran her
into shoal water, she was followed and attacked by the pinnace, and
her crew then escaped ashore, but were all killed by men from
Bintulu and Miri. The steamer then attacked another prahu—and after
firing into her twice rammed and sank her. Her crew were all
drowned, killed, or captured, and the captives, about twenty in
number, escaped on board the steamer. A similar fate overtook a
third prahu, all her crew perishing, and her captives, about
twenty-five in number, were rescued by the steamer. The steamer then
gave chase to the three prahus in the offing and overtook them.
These three prahus were lashed together, but separated after being
fired into. A short engagement ensued, which resulted in all three
of the prahus being sunk, and their crews being killed or captured.
Twenty-one captives were rescued from their prahus. And thus were
the pirates destroyed off Bintulu by the Rajah of Sarawak's steamer
the _Rainbow_.
Moreover it is estimated that the pirates lost forty men killed, and
the steamer lost but one man killed and one wounded. And thus Nakoda
Amzah and three of his men were rescued, and reached Kuching in
safety. The remaining six were taken away in the other five prahus
that sailed to Belitong and Bangka, and were probably taken by their
captors to Sulu during the month of Haji.
Written in Kuching on Friday the 6th day of Dulkaidah, 1278 of the
Hejira (A.D. 1862).
This was a lesson the pirates never forgot. From one of their prahus
nineteen men escaped in a fast boat to carry the tale back with them,
soon to spread to all the pirate haunts. Only once since, some seven
years later, did the pirates venture down to the Sarawak coast, and then
in no great force. They were attacked in Kedurong bay, and slain to a
man by the Bintulu people led by their own chiefs. No more pirates were
seen on the Sarawak coast afterwards.
The next year a squadron of steamers was sent from China to attack and
root out all these pirates; but they came for no end except to sport
their bunting, for nothing was effected. They could have had no
intelligence officer with them with a knowledge of the positions of the
piratical strongholds, and acquainted with the languages, habits, and
appearance of the inhabitants of the northern coast of Borneo and the
Sulu archipelago.
Though the pirates never troubled Sarawak again, they continued their
operations in other parts for many years afterwards. As late as 1872,
Dutch squadrons had to be sent out against them along the east coast of
Borneo. And in 1874 piracy was so rife in the Sulu seas, and the Spanish
gunboats so unable to suppress it, that the Governor-General of the
Philippines issued an edict dooming the "Moorish marine" to destruction.
The Spanish cruisers were to destroy _all_ prahus proceeding from the
Sulu islands or Tawi Tawi. Their crews were to be conveyed to Manila to
labour on public works, and those found armed were to be punished by the
Military Courts. It was hoped that these untameable and seafaring races
would be thus compelled to live by agricultural pursuits alone. This
merciless condemnation of peaceable traders and voyagers as well as the
evil-doers naturally led to gross injustice, and to intense hatred of
the Spaniards. Even those not bearing arms, engaged in peaceful
pursuits, if apprehended, were doomed to compulsory labour; whereas
those found armed, met with short shrift—and all were compelled to be
armed for their own protection.
In 1879, the pirates of Tungku, a place near Sandakan, the last
stronghold of the Balanini and Lanun pirates in northern Borneo, made
several excursions along the coast capturing as many as 200 people. Then
the place was destroyed by H.M.S. _Kestrel_. (It had been attacked
before by the _Cleopatra_ in 1851.) Shortly afterwards the British North
Borneo Company established their government in North Borneo, and piracy
virtually ceased along the coasts of Borneo.
-----
Footnote 269:
St. John, _Life of Sir James Brooke_.
Footnote 270:
By Article III. of the Treaty of May, 1847, the British Government
engaged to use every means in their power to suppress piracy within
the seas, straits, and rivers subject to Bruni.
Footnote 271:
Miss Agnes Brooke.
Footnote 272:
Some were from the Celebes; some from both Southern and Western
Borneo; some Javanese; some from the Natuna islands. Amongst them were
a nadoka and the crew of a Singapore vessel, and a Malay woman of
Singapore and her family. (From an account by the Rajah Muda, which is
practically the same as the Bishop's.)
Footnote 273:
Some fifty people from Matu, Oya, and Muka were rescued.
Footnote 274:
Belitong.
Footnote 275:
Ruah Selamat—a prayer of thanksgiving. The pirates now calculated upon
being quit of men-of-war, and that the rest of their voyage would be
free from danger.
Footnote 276:
There were many more people captured between Bruit and Bintulu, but
the narrator probably only knew of those captured by the prahu on
board of which he was a prisoner; he is at fault, too, as to the
number of pirates killed, and captives rescued.
[Illustration:
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, KAYAN, ETC.]