Recognition, for which the Rajah had striven for so many years, being at last granted, filled him with the greatest satisfaction. But considering the past history of Sarawak, and bearing in mind how well that country has since done without extraneous aid, it would seem to have been a pity that Sarawak ever attracted the attention of England, and that the Rajah ever sought for encouragement or protection there. Sarawak has stood the test of nearly seventy years as an independent State, and continues its prosperous career, without owing anything to any one, and requiring only to be let alone. But financial troubles had overtaken the State in the latter days of the Rajah, and to him these were an endless source of worry and anxiety. From 1863, to the time of his death in 1868, his letters to his representative in Sarawak, the Tuan Muda, were almost always on this subject. To matters relating to general policy, there is in them little reference to be found; though throughout they express constant forebodings in regard to the future of the raj. "Alone, burdened with debts, with few friends and many foes, how are you to stand without support," he wrote to the Tuan Muda; the last years of his life were clouded by a dread of evils, for he placed too much weight on public opinion, which was generally as erroneous as it was inimical.[292] In 1863, the whole responsibility was thrown upon the present Rajah's shoulders, to whom it was left to find a way to establish the revenue on a sound basis, and to reduce a large debt without sacrificing efficiency. The Government under the present Rajah practically commenced in that year. Sir Spenser St. John says, in his _Rajah Brooke_:— "In the autumn of 1866 he (the Rajah) received a severe shock. His nephew, the Tuan Muda, wrote that he had sold the steamer _Rainbow_ to pay off a debt due to their Singapore agent—a debt incurred through careless extravagance in carrying out his many public works at a time when funds were scarce. For a moment it almost stupefied him, as this steamer had not yet been paid for," and "Sarawak without a steamer, he felt assured, would sink back into its old state of insecurity; and therefore another steamer must be had. By great exertion, he succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and purchased a vessel which was christened the _Royalist_."