In the settlement which followed the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars Great Britain decided to restore to Holland the Island of Java, which she had occupied since 1811. She also gave up all other Dutch possessions in the Malay Archipelago, and compensated herself by the establishment of Singapore and the elimination of Dutch rule from the Malay Peninsula. Thenceforth--from 1818--the kingdom of Holland extended its sway through the nineteenth century over all parts of Malaysia, except the Philippine Islands (which belonged to Spain down to 1898), the Portuguese portion of the Island of Timor, and the northern parts of the great island of Borneo. It is difficult to understand why the Dutch left North Borneo alone. That region had been, however, for centuries, more or less under the dominion of a once powerful Muhammadan prince, the Sultan of Brunei, and it may be that he was too strong (possessing, as he did, in the early part of the nineteenth century, a great fleet of pirate ships) for the Dutch to tackle. This potentate occasionally entered into relations with the East India Company, but was not infrequently called to account for the piracies committed by his subjects or his allies the "sea-gipsies" (see p. 55) in the narrow seas between Borneo and Indo-China. The possibilities of North Borneo attracted the attention in 1830-2 of a notable pioneer of the British Empire, James Brooke, who had been an officer in the service of the East India Company, but was taking a journey to China on account of his health. Learning that the Sultan of Brunei wished for assistance to enable him to put down piracy and overcome rebellious chiefs, Brooke, having inherited his father's fortune, fitted out an expedition at his own expense in England and left the mouth of the Thames in 1838 for North Borneo in a ship of his own, a sailing yacht of only 140 tons. It would somewhat daunt the modern adventurer to embark on a little sailing vessel of that size and voyage round the Cape of Good Hope and across the stormy southern half of the Indian Ocean to the Sea of China. Brooke found on his arrival at Brunei that the uncle of the sultan was engaged in a difficult war with the Dayaks in the western part of northern Borneo (Sarawak). On condition that he subdued the rebels and pirates in the western part of his dominions the Sultan of Brunei agreed to confer on Brooke the chieftainship of this region; and this delegation of authority developed (not altogether, however, to the liking of the Sultan of Brunei) into the creation of the very remarkable State of Sarawak, which ever since 1841 has been a sovereign state in Malaysia, under the rule of an English raja. Indeed, although Sarawak was founded in 1841, it has only known, so far, two rulers, firstly, Sir James Brooke, and secondly, his nephew Sir Charles Johnson Brooke. Ever since 1888 Sarawak has been under British protection. The British Government had annexed the Island of Labuan, near Brunei, in 1846,