of the coast.

"The next pirate horde we meet with is a mixed community of
Illanuns and Badjows (or sea-gipsys) located at Tampasuk, a few
miles up a small river; they are not formidable in number, and their
depredations are chiefly committed on the Spanish territory; their
market, until recently, being Bruni, or Borneo Proper. They might
readily be dispersed and driven back to their own country; and the
Dusuns, or villagers (as the name signifies), might be protected and
encouraged. Seriff Houseman, a half-bred Arab, is located in Malludu
Bay, and has, by account, from fifteen hundred to two thousand men with
him. He is beyond doubt a pirate direct and indirect, and occasionally
commands excursions in person, or employs the Illanuns of Tampasuk,
and others to the eastward, who for their own convenience make common
cause with him. He has no pretension to the territory he occupies;
and the authority he exerts (by means of his piratical force) over
the interior tribes in his vicinity, and on the island of Palawan,
is of the worst and most oppressive description. This seriff has
probably never come in contact with any Europeans, and consequently
openly professes to hold their power in scorn.

"To my own knowledge Seriff Houseman seized and sold into slavery
a boat's crew (about twenty men) of the Sultana, a merchant ship,
which was burned in the Palawan passage. Within the last few months he
has plundered and burned a European vessel stranded near the Mangsi
Isles; and to show his entire independence of control, his contempt
for European power, and his determination to continue in his present
course, he has threatened to attack the city of Bruni, in consequence
of the Bruni government having entered into a treaty with her majesty's
government for the discouragement and suppression of piracy. This fact
speaks volumes; an old-established and recognized Malay government is
to be attacked by a lawless adventurer, who has seized on a portion
of its territory, and lives by piracy, for venturing to treat with a
foreign power for the best purposes. If any further proof of piracy
were requisite, it would readily be established by numerous witnesses
(themselves the victims), and by the most solemn declaration of
the Bruni authorities, that peaceful traders on the high seas have
been stopped by the prahus of this seriff and his allies, their
vessel seized, their property plundered, and their persons enslaved;
numerous witnesses co