It will be remembered that before the rebellion of the Sarawak people against the Government of Bruni these offices had been held by three of their chiefs, who, in 1841, were reinstated in their old positions by the Rajah, and made collectors of the revenue in their several districts.[225] This was a tax levied on the head of a family of a bushel and a half of rice. Hitherto the officers of Government, the Bruni Pangirans great and small, had exercised the right of pre-emption of whatever the Dayak produced, and that at the prices they themselves fixed. Rajah Brooke modified, but could not wholly abolish, this privilege. He suffered these three officials, and them alone, to have the right to buy before all others what the Dayaks had to dispose of, but only at market price. With the others, the Datu Patinggi Gapur had been in disgrace under Rajah Muda Hasim and the Pangiran Makota. Any one who was looked on with an evil eye by that arch-scoundrel Makota had a claim to be regarded as an honest man, and for a while the Datu Patinggi did fairly well, but this was only till he had, as he thought, established himself firmly; and then he began to oppress the natives in the old way, by enforcing sales to himself on his own terms; and the timid people, accustomed to this sort of treatment, and afraid of the consequences should they protest, submitted without denouncing him to the Rajah. He was a man plausible and polite, and some time elapsed before the Rajah obtained sufficient evidence to convict him. But when he did, instead of deposing him from office, he announced his determination to pay each of these officials a fixed salary, in lieu of the enforced first trade with the Dayaks, and of their share in Dayak revenue.