Lord Derby’s Government was now in office, and Lord Malmesbury settled with Sir James Brooke that he should be appointed Her Majesty’s representative in the Further East, to enable him to negotiate treaties with foreign powers. He was to begin with Siam and Cochin China. A General Election, however, took place in the autumn of 1852, which sealed the fate of the Conservative Ministry. Sir James had already been named Envoy to Siam, and would have proceeded at once to that country by the special wish of Chaufa Mungkut, the new king, when the Mission was suddenly and unexpectedly put off, owing to His Majesty’s desire to have further time to complete the elaborate funeral ceremonies required by custom for his brother, the late king. Ever since our mission to Siam in 1850, Chaufa Mungkut had kept up a private correspondence with the Rajah of Sarawak, in whose doings he showed great interest. So closed the year 1852, and on the 1st January 1853 appeared the list of the new ministers—the Coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen. ‘England loves not coalitions,’ said D’Israeli; and we certainly did not love this one. Probably to strengthen their parliamentary majority, and yielding to the influence of Mr Cobden, the new Government decided to grant Mr Hume’s demand and issue a Commission to inquire into the conduct of Sir James Brooke. Sir James himself had always courted inquiry, and therefore the Ministry might have communicated their intention to him before he left England, which he had decided to do during the first week in April. But instead of consulting with him, they tried to keep the whole affair dark, and it was only accidentally that Sir James heard of it. I never could understand how a frank, loyal man like Lord Clarendon could lend himself to such proceedings, but I suppose he was overruled by Lord Aberdeen and Mr Sidney Herbert. Finding that their determination to issue a Commission of Inquiry could no longer be concealed from Sir James Brooke, they wrote to him officially on the subject, and stated that they would call on the Governor-General of India to choose Commissioners. They further assured Sir James that ‘the inquiry should be full, fair and complete.’ But the whole transaction had been so underhand, so humiliating to him personally, so derogatory to him as ruler of Sarawak, that he felt it bitterly, and he closed his despatch to Lord Clarendon, April 4, 1853, the day he left England, with these words: ‘It is with sorrow unmixed with anger that I leave the world to judge the services I have rendered and the treatment I have received.’