pointed while I have life to uphold them. God
has so far used me as a humble instrument of his hidden
Providence; and whatever be the result, whatever my fate, I know
the example will not be thrown away. I know it tends to a good
end in His own time. He can open a path for me through all
difficulties, raise me up friends who will share with me in the
task, awaken the energies of the great and powerful, so that
they may protect this unhappy people. I trust it may be so: but
if God wills otherwise; if the time be not yet arrived; if it be
the Almighty's will that the flickering taper shall be
extinguished ere it be replaced by a steady beacon, I submit, in
the firm and humble assurance that His ways are better than my
ways, and that the term of my life is better in His hands than
in my own."

On the 1st August, 1842, this cession of Sarawak to Mr. BROOKE was
confirmed by His Highness Sultan OMAR ALI SAIFUDIN, under the Great
Seal. MUDA HASSIM was the uncle of the Sultan, who was a sovereign of
weak, vacillating disposition, at one time guided by the advice of his
uncle, who was the leader of the "English party," and expressing his
desire for the Queen's assistance to put down piracy and disorder and
offering, in return, to cede to the British the island of Labuan; at
another following his own natural inclinations and siding altogether
with the party of disorder, who were resolved to maintain affairs as
they were in the "good old times," knowing that when the reign of law
and order should be established their day and their power and ability to
aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the aborigines and
the common people would come to an end. There is no doubt that Mr.
BROOKE himself considered it would be for the good of the country that
MUDA HASSIM should be raised to the throne and the Sultan certainly
entertained a not altogether ill-founded dread that it was intended to
depose him in the latter's favour, the more so as a large majority of
the Brunai people were known to be in his interest. In the early part
of 1845 MUDA HASSIM appears to have been in favour with the Sultan, and
was publicly announced as successor to the throne with the title of
_Sultan Muda_ (muda = young, the usual Malay title for the heir apparent
to the Crown), and the document recognising the appointment of Mr.
BROOKE as the Queen's Confidential Agent in Borneo was written in the
name o