أليسا
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
1ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE
BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Evidence on the
point whether by
(2)
everywhere pursued and punished with death; and the severity with which the law has animadverted on this crime, arises from its enormity and danger, the cruelty that accompanies it, the necessity of checking it, the difficulty of detection, and the facility with which robberies may be committed upon pacific traders in the solitude of the ocean."
44
"
Every nation has a right to attack and exterminate them without any declaration among them- of war; for though pirates may form a loose and temporary association selves, and re-establish in some degree those laws of justice which they have violated with the rest of the world, yet they are not considered as a national body, or entitled to the laws of one, as one of a community of nations.”—(Kent's Commentaries, lect. ix. vol. 1, p. 183, ed. 1844.)
It results, therefore, from this statement of the law of nations, as it affects piracy, that those are pirates, who commit forcible depredations on the high seas without lawful authority, animo furandi, and in the spirit and intention of universal hostility. Any community of men habitually acting in this spirit and with these objects, is a piratical community, and as such to be regarded as in a state of hostility war, and as the to the human race, as placed beyond the protection of the laws of just object of attack and extermination, without any declaration of war, on the part of every other community on the face of the earth.
Now, are or are not the Sarebas and Sakarran Dyaks a community of this the law of Nations, description? This is a pure question of evidence, and evidence more overwhelmingly
the Sareba and Sa-
karran were
ratical community.
pi- conclusive in favour of an affirmative answer to this question it is wholly impossible to imagine. The only difficulty is one of selection, so uniform and decisive is the current of testimony.
Passages on this Sir James Brooke (then Mr. Brooke), in the letter on Borneo published by point from Brooke's Letter on Borso, him so long back as the year 1842, speaking of the Hill Dyaks as contrasted with date, 1842.
the Dyaks of the coast, and alluding evidently to the Sarebas and Sakarran hordes, speaks of the latter as "the savage and predatory tribes of the coast," who “have forsaken their original customs and have joined piracy to their former practice of taking heads; and," he adds, “they are not different from other pirates, who destroy as well as plunder.”—(Brooke's Letter from Borneo, 1842, p. 19.) And in page 35 Jof the same work he writes, "Besides the Lanoon pirates, the Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran yearly sweep the shore, even to Celebes, murdering the men of all nations, and capturing women and children, rendering the cultivation of the coast dangerous, and preventing the cultivation of the soil near the sea shore."
Extract from letter of Mr. Earl, (author
date, March 6, 1866.
Mr. George Windsor Earl, the author of the work on "The Eastern Seas," in of Eastern Beas): a letter written to Sir James Brooke, and dated Singapore, March 5, 1850,* says, in reference to this point, "As one of the oldest, indeed I believe the oldest surviving British visitor to the western coasts of Borneo, I feel myself called upon to offer my testimony as to the state of those coasts 16 years ago. I have a lively recollection, even at this distant date, of the terror in which the coast was kept by the very tribes which you have been instrumental in checking." And he then goes on to relate how, a year before his arrival, the entire population of the town of Slahu had been cut off by a marauding party of these very tribes, whom in his work he had mistakenly represented as coming, not from the river of Sakarran, but from the Island of Serhassan.
* A copy of this letter is marked A in a collection of written and printed documents which will socompany some of the copies of this Statement, but which, owing to their length, it has not been deamed advisable to print as an appendix to it.
( 3 )
Extract from lettor of Mr. Jackson to
date, Feb. 15, 1850.
Mr. Jackson, a gentleman who represents himself as having been collecting evidence for his own private satisfaction as to the recent piracies on the coast of Singapore Freel'ress: Borneo, thus
expresses himself in a letter addressed to the editor of the Singapore Free Press, dated Singapore, Feb. 15, 1850 :—“ Opportunities of conversation with many respectable natives of that place (Sarawak), and of other parts of Borneo, in addition to the published evidence in the case lately decided by the court here, left no doubt on my mind either of the Sarebas and Sakarran tribes being by profession pirates and buccaneers, or that the particular fleet, happily destroyed by Captain Farquhar, had been assembled for the purposes of piracy, and had com- mitted several acts of a piratical character upon those whom it encountered, without It is notorious that these regard to nation or any other circumstance whatever. expeditions are planned partly by Malays, and partly by Dyaks, the latter being rewarded for their share in the enterprise, with the heads taken on the occasion, while the plunder fails to the share of the Malays, who originate the enterprise."
Nothing would be easier than to multiply similar testimony of Europeans practically acquainted with the Eastern Archipelago, to the general notoriety in that region of the fact that the Sarebas and Sakarran hordes of mixed Malays and Dyaks are a community of freebooters systematically pursuing plunder as their trade, or, if the phrase be preferred, piracy as their profession; the fact indeed is "the native laughs when he hears that so notorious, that as Sir James Brooke says, it is doubted."
Depositions taken before the Commis-
the Court of Judica-
the matter of the
head money: date,
ioners appointed by ture, at Singapore, in
But the direct evidence taken before the commission appointed by Sir Christopher Rawlinson, in the course of the trial of the Albatross's claim to head money evidence, be it remembered, given by men who had actually them- selves been eye-witnesses of the doings of these marauders, and taken part in their Albatross claim to predatory warfare, is so striking, and at the same time so precise on this point, as Sept. 1849. alone to set the question at rest with those who are not hopelessly deaf to the voice of testimony. The following are extracts from the depositions taken on that occasion:-
""
Siup, a Sadong Malay, lately residing at Sarebas, deposes that "within the last eight months three large fleets have sailed from Sarebas on piratical cruises.”
Abong Bit, formerly a Sarebas pirate, deposes" that it was the ordinary practice of the Sarebas and Sakarran' people to go out on piratical expeditions, sometimes from the one place, sometimes from the other. The object of these expeditions was to When at sea they made no difference amongst those take plunder and to obtain heads.
He further deposes that he they attacked-attacking all whom they could overcome."' himself "has been out very often on piratical expeditions, at least thirty times; that he has often attacked and plundered trading prahus when on these excursions." He then mentions particularly having been present on several occasions, on which different places were attacked by Sarebas fleets, with which he was out; at an attack on Sankawan, when upwards of 100 Chinamen were killed; at the capture of Sungie Takong, where 50 Chinamen were killed; at the capture of Sungie Biah, where 150 Chinese were killed; at Duri, where 100 heads were obtained. He then goes on to say "that the Malays plundered the places captured, and the Dyaks got the heads." With reference to this point, it must always be borne in mind that the Sakarran and Sarebas tribes are composed partly of Malays and
• Marked B among the documents referred to in the preceeding note.
+ Marked C in list of documents.
a
Deposition of Aboug Bit, formerly
Sarebas pirate,
( 4 )