We found, on reckoning up, that we had picked up 165 people, and that 150 to 200 men had got to land from the vessels we sank near the shore. In every pirate vessel there were forty or or fifty Illanuns, fighting men, all well armed, each having a rifle or musket besides his native weapons, and from 60 to 70 captives, many of whom were killed by the pirates when they found themselves beaten; among them two women. Seven of the women and four of the children were our own Muka people[273] and it was indeed most touching to witness the joy and gratitude of them and their relations when we returned them to their friends. Of the Illanuns we captured 32, ten of them boys. Some have died since of their wounds, the remainder are in irons in the fort here. The boys have been given out by Brooke for five years to respectable people to train and bring up. Very few of the pirates live to tell the tale; some captives assured us in the boat they were in there were only two out of the forty fighting-men who had not been killed or wounded by our fire, when we gave them the stem and cut them down.
Under the present system at Labuan, and the difficulties thrown in the way of our men-of-war against attacking these wretches when they are known to be in the neighbourhood, England with all her power and philanthropy is doing absolutely nothing towards putting an end to this abominable and most extensive system of rapine, murder, and slavery. It is impossible to estimate the destruction and the havoc, the murder and the amount of slave-dealing carried on by these wretches in their yearly cruises. The prahus we met were but one of the many squadrons that leave Sulu every year. Seven months had these wretches been devastating the villages on the coast, capturing slaves, taking and sinking trading vessels. Their course was along the coasts of Celebes, down the Macassar Straits to Madura and then along the Northern coast of Java, and the South of Borneo, up the Caramata passage to Borneo, to go home by Sarawak and Labuan. The other five pirate vessels parted company from them to go over to Balliton[274] and Banca Straits, and doubtless they too will carry their depredations right up into the Straits of Singapore and pick up English subjects and injure English trade, as those we met have done. But apart from all our local feelings, and danger from these people, it makes an Englishman out here ashamed to feel that his own dear country, which we would fain regard as the liberator of the slave and the avenger of the wronged, is in truth doing nothing against the system, fraught with incalculable misery to so large a section of the human race. For it must be remembered that the slavery these people suffer is far more crushing to them than the African who is taken as a savage to serve civilised and at least, nominally, Christian masters; but these are generally well-to-do men of civilised nations who are made the slaves of utter fiends, who work and torture them to death one year, only to replace them by fresh victims whom they capture the next. It is indeed _vae victis_ with them, and I think it is the duty of every Christian man and every Christian nation to do all that can be done to rid the earth of such horrible and dangerous monsters, and to punish the Sultan of Sulu and all who abet and aid them. The Dutch and Spaniards are always doing something, but not enough, and during the last four or five years, these pirate fleets have been gradually getting more and more numerous and daring on these coasts, and now it is for England to rouse herself and complete the work of putting them down. Labuan is near their haunts and it might be done from thence. A few thousands spent out here yearly for the purpose would, I believe in my heart, soon effect more real and lasting good than the millions which are being spent on the coast of Africa. All honour is due to Sir James Brooke and his nephew, the Rajah Muda, and the other officers of the Sarawak government, who in spite of misrepresentation and factious opposition, through evil report and good report, have persevered for years in constant, steady, and systematic efforts to put down piracy on this coast and chastise these villainous marauders whenever they come into Sarawak waters. If the English government will now act with and assist us, we shall soon clear the Sarawak and Labuan waters of these pests. Assisted by the knowledge and experience of our natives, the work would be done surely and effectually; but single-handed the Sarawak government notwithstanding all it has done, cannot carry it out.