during the fast without soft sugar and dates?'"

The delivery of the prisoners, and the forgiveness of Muda Hassim, were
quickly obtained; the more personal matter found opposition with the
advisers of the Crown, but was ultimately conceded. On the 1st of August
1842, the letters to Muda Hassim were sealed and signed; and at the same
council the contract, which gave Mr Brooke the government of Sar[=a]wak,
was fully discussed; and by ten o'clock at night was signed, sealed and
witnessed. Mr Brooke returned to his government and people on the
following day.

On the 1st of January 1843, the following entry appears in the diary so
often quoted:--"Another year passed and gone!--a year with all its
anxieties, its troubles, its dangers, upon which I can look back with
satisfaction--a year in which I have been usefully employed in doing
good to others. Since I last wrote, the Dyaks have been quiet, settled,
and improving; the Chinese advancing towards prosperity; and the
Sar[=a]wak people wonderfully contented and industrious, relieved from
oppression, and fields of labour allowed them. Justice I have executed
with an unflinching hand."

It was in the month of March 1843, at the conclusion of the Chinese war,
that Captain Keppel was ordered in the Dido to the Malacca Straits and
the island of Borneo. Daring acts of piracy had been committed, and were
still committing, on the Borneon coast; and, becoming engaged in the
suppression of these crimes, he fell in with the English rajah of
Sar[=a]wak, and obtained from him the information which he has recently
given to the world, and enabled us to place succinctly before our
readers.

The piracy of the Eastern Archipelago is very different to that of the
western world. The former obtains an importance unknown to the latter.
The hordes who conduct it issue from their islands and coasts in fleets,
rove from place to place, intercept the native trade, enslave whole
towns at the entrance of rivers, and attack ill-armed or stranded
European vessels. The native governments, if they are not participators
in the crime, are made its victims, and in many cases, we are told, they
are both--purchasing from one set of pirates, and plundered and enslaved
by another. Captain Keppel has well related more than one engagement in
which he was concerned with the ferocious marauders of these eastern
seas--scenes of blood and horror, justified only by the enormity of the
offence, and the ultimate advan