By his enterprise Sarawak, weakened by civil war and oppression, was converted into an independent and cogent State, and became a check upon any further advance of the Dutch northwards; and their strong diplomatic objections to the Rajah's presence in Sarawak shows what they had in view. Moreover, the treaty he effected with the Sultan of Bruni in 1847 effectually prevented any settlements other than of an English character being established in northern Borneo. From southern Borneo England had retired in favour of the Dutch, and, previous to this, after the disaster of Balambangan, and its withdrawal from Bruni, had ceased to take any further interest in northern Borneo, nor was any attempt made to re-establish its prestige there, or to suppress piracy, even after Singapore had been founded in 1819. As usual, England had to wait for a man of action and resolution, and twenty years afterwards, though, fortunately, when not too late, he appeared in the person of the late Rajah. Such a man also was Sir Stamford Raffles, who saved Singapore and the Malay peninsula to England. It is almost a parallel case. The members of the East India Board were furious, and the Ministers of the Crown were "excessively angry." Indeed had it not been for Raffles ... it is certain that Singapore would have been abandoned by the British. Raffles made it, and Raffles saved it.... Raffles' genius and patriotism were rewarded by endless worry, by the disapproval of his employers, and by public censure from his country's Ministers.[289] But the Rajah abandoned the larger policy as hopeless, and devoted his life and his means to his adopted country; and here the British Government, influenced by Gladstone, Cobden, Sidney Herbert, and their Little England followers, did its best to paralyse his efforts. "My duty has been done at any cost," he wrote sadly, "and the British Government will be responsible for the consequences which must follow upon its abandonment of Sarawak. I do not mention the treatment I have personally received at its hands, for I seek no favour, nor expect justice, and I shall close a troubled career with the conviction that it might have been useful to my country and honourable to myself and a blessing to the native race, but for the indifference, the inconstancy, and, I regret to say, the injustice of the British Government."[290] In an introduction to his nephew the Tuan Muda's _Ten Years in Sarawak_, written in January 1866, he expressed what had been the ambition of his life, and his disappointment at its nonfulfilment.