In 1844, Ambong was a flourishing town occupied by an industrious and peaceable people, subjects of the Sultan of Bruni. In 1846, Captain Rodney Mundy, R.N., visited it, and the town was represented by a heap of ruins alone; the inhabitants had been slaughtered, or enslaved to be passed on to Usup, that he might make what he could out of them, by holding them to ransom by their relatives. The Balenini were hand in glove with the Lanuns, and often associated with them in their expeditions. They issued from a group of islands in the Sulu sea, and acted in complicity with the Sultan of Sulu, whose country was the great nucleus of piracy. They equipped annually considerable fleets to prey upon the commerce with Singapore and the Straits; they also attacked villages, and carried off alike crews of vessels and villagers to slavery, to be crowded for months in the bottom of the pirate vessels, suffering indescribable miseries. Their cruising grounds were also very extensive; the whole circuit of Borneo was exposed to their attacks, except only the Lanun settlements, for hawks do not peck out hawk's een. When pursued and liable to be overtaken, they cut the throats of their captives and threw them overboard, men, women, and children alike. Up to 1848, the principal Balenini strongholds were in Balenini, Tongkil, and Basilan islands, but they were then driven out of the two former islands by the Spaniards, and they established themselves on other islands in the Sulu Archipelago; and Tawi Tawi island, which had always been one of their strongholds, then became their principal one. Trade with Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago was rendered almost impossible, or at least a very dangerous pursuit, and even merchantmen using the Palawan passage to China, which takes them close along the coast of Borneo, often fell a prey to these pirates. Earl, writing a year or two before the advent of the late Rajah to Sarawak, remarks in connection with Borneo, that it ought to be considered but "an act of justice to the natives of the Indian Archipelago, whom we have enticed to visit our settlement of Singapore, that some exertion should be made towards the suppression of piracy." He blames the unaccountable indifference and neglect which the British Government had hitherto displayed, and expresses his sympathy for the natives. He considered it his duty to point the way—it was left to the late Rajah to lead in it.