CO882-(1-2) — Page 363

XXI

HEADS OF STATEMENT

OF THE CASE OF

SIR

JAMES

BROOK E,

IN REFERENCE TO THE

ENGAGEMENT WITH THE SAREBAS AND SAKARRAN PIRATES,

ON THE $lar JULY, 1849.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

C.O. 882

1

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

The charges against Sir James Brooke, in reference to that expedition against the Sarebas and Sakarran tribes which terminated in the affair of the 31st July, 1849, when stripped of the verbiage of the platform, and that peculiar ferocity of attack which has hitherto invariably distinguished the apostles of peace, seem reducible to two heads :--

Heads of charges against Sir James Brooks.

bas

I. That the Bare- and Sakarran

ratical communities.

1. That the Sarebas and Sakarran tribes of mixed Malays and Dyaks were in no proper sense of the word pirates, but merely a horde of barbarians practising a tribes were not pi- mode of predatory warfare, which was not only one of the most inveterate and time-honoured usages of their own community, but which they pursued in common with all the other Dyak populations of the Bornean coasts.

II. That, at all events, there is no proof of the piratical character of that particular expedition which was terminated by the affair of the 31st of July, 1849;

II. That there is no proof they were on a pirational expe- dition when attacked by Sir J. Brooke and Captain Farquhar,on

or that, even conceding that there is now such proof, there was none at the time sufficient to justify Sir James Brooke in acting as he did; but that by the rules of 81st July, 1849. the law of nations and by the tenor and spirit of his instructions, he was precluded from treating these Sarebas and Sakarran marauders as a piratical force, until they had shown their piratical character by some overt act of insult or aggression on the British flag.

Let us take these charges in their order :--

1.-Were the Sare- bus and Sakarran

First, then, were or were not these Sarebas and Sakarran tribes pirates, in the true sense which that word has uniformly borne in the law of nations? In order pirates.

to answer this question satisfactorily, it may be as well to consider what by the law of nations is piracy, and who are pirates. No clearer, more compendious, but at

the same time more comprehensive, statement on this point can be found than in the following passage from the celebrated commentaries of that great American jurist who, in the mature evening of his days, gathered into one great treasury of legal learning all the concentrated results of a laborious life long exercised in the profoundest researches of international law. It is thus that Chancellor Kent writes

What Piracy is laid down to be, in the

of piracy and pirates; of the nature of the crime and the mode of its punishment :-

Piracy is robbery, or a forcible depredation, on the high seas, without lawful authority, and done animo furandi, and in the spirit and intention of universal Law of Nations? hostility. It is the same offence at sea with robbery on land; and all the writers on the law of nations, and on the maritime law of Europe, agree in this definition of piracy. Pirates have been regarded by all civilized nations as the enemies of the human race, and the most atrocious violaters of the universal law of society. They are

A

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