But when he
assured them that his purpose was fixed, that he should go, alone if
necessary, they replied: "What is the use of our remaining behind? You
die, we die; you live, we live. We will go too." The expedition was
perfectly successful. Three fortified villages were stormed, many guns
spiked, many boats destroyed, and their defenders driven to the jungles.
This chastisement not sufficing, in the following year another
expedition from the same vessel attacked the Sakarran pirates and
inflicted upon them a punishment even more severe than that which had
fallen to the lot of their Sarebus brethren. Six forts, one mounting
fifty-six guns, scores of war-boats, and more than a thousand huts, were
burned. These lessons, though sharp, did not permanently subdue.
The blow which broke the power of these confederacies was inflicted in
1849. News came to Sarawak that the pirates had put to sea, marking
their course by fearful atrocities. At once Mr. Brooke applied to the
English Admiral for assistance, and the steamer Nemesis was despatched
to the scene of action. The Rajah joined her with eighteen war-boats, to
which were afterwards added eleven hundred Dyaks, in their bangkongs. On
the 31st of July, at night, they encountered the great war-fleet of the
Sarebus and Sakarran pirates, numbering one hundred and fifty bangkongs,
returning home laden with plunder.
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