The Rajah Muda Hasim, the Bandahara of Bruni and the heir-presumptive to the throne, was a plain, middle-aged man, with gracious and courtly manners, amiable and well disposed, but weak and indolent. He was placed in a difficult position, which he had not the energy or the ability to fill. The Sultan of Bruni had confided the district of Sarawak some years previously to the Pangiran Makota as governor, a man utterly unprincipled, grasping, selfish, cruel, and cowardly, but "the most mild, the most gentlemanly rascal you can conceive";[84] and by his exactions and by forced labour at the antimony mines, he had driven the Sarawak Malays, as well as the Land-Dayaks, into open revolt. They proclaimed their independence of Bruni, and asserted that submission to the Sultan had been voluntary on their part, and on stipulated conditions that had not been carried out. For three years they had carried on their struggle against the Bruni tyrants, but, though far from being reduced, it became evident to them that unaided they could not attain their freedom. Surrender meant death to the chiefs and abject slavery to the people, and to their womankind something far worse than either, so in their extremity they appealed to the Dutch. A year before Mr. Brooke's arrival they had invited the Dutch to plant the Netherlands flag in their camp, and afterwards had sent an emissary to Batavia to beg the assistance of the Governor-General, but open assistance was refused, though the Sultan of Sambas appears to have constantly supplied the rebels with ammunition and provisions. As Mr. Brooke had warned the Pangiran Makota, who had reason to fear Dutch aggression, the danger was not an open violation of their independence, but their coming on friendly terms—they might make war after having first gained a footing, not before. The Dutch had made great efforts to establish trade with Sarawak, in other words, to monopolise it, and through their vassal, the Sultan of Sambas, had offered assistance to open the antimony mines. The Sultan of Bruni had sent his uncle, the Rajah Muda Hasim, to reduce the rebels, but without withdrawing Makota and checking his abuse of authority. A desultory war had been carried on without success under the direction of Makota, who was too cowardly himself to lead his Malay and Dayak levies into action, to storm the stockades of the insurgents, and to pursue them to their strongholds. The consequence was that anarchy prevailed, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital. There was something in the frank eye, in the cheery self-confidence of Brooke that captivated the timid little Rajah Muda, who was not only unable to cope with the Malays in revolt, but was afraid of his neighbours, the Dutch, lest they should make the disturbances an excuse for intervention and annexation, and he hoped in his extremity to obtain some help from the British.