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Speaker 1: M hmm, what kind of kind of struck out? Honestly, Uh,

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Speaker 1: my Robert Evans, host of Behind the Bastards, the podcast

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Speaker 1: where I talk about bad people. But this morning I

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Speaker 1: woke up like seven minutes before we started recording, and

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Speaker 1: so I'm I'm pounding coffee into my face and it's one. Um,

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Speaker 1: just for the rock, It's it's the morning, Sophie. It's like,

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Speaker 1: this is like nine am for you. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: like seven am for me. Um. I don't think anyone's

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Speaker 1: ever awoke this early, except from my guest today, doctor

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Speaker 1: kind of holda. Yeah, you just nailed that intro. By

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Speaker 1: the way, thank you, professional broadcasting at its finest. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I was we just did the Rush Limbaugh episode.

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Speaker 1: So I've been I've been thinking of a true professional

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Speaker 1: and trying to trying to really nail it down, which

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Speaker 1: is why I got drunk last night and slept until

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Speaker 1: I did not like that reference to Rush Limbaugh. L

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Speaker 1: Rush Bow. Yeah. Uh, you are a podcaster, one of

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Speaker 1: the hosts of the House of Pod podcast. Um, you

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Speaker 1: are are my my go to source for medical advice

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Speaker 1: or bastard. Um we we we got to hang out.

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Speaker 1: One of the last times, uh, that I got to

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Speaker 1: hang out with anybody outside of um my riot friends

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Speaker 1: in Portland right before the plague went down. That would

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Speaker 1: have been what when when I was on your podcast,

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Speaker 1: that would have been like January. It's worth noting because

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Speaker 1: you came and I looked this up because somebody posted

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Speaker 1: this and they posted the transcript. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: they did that, but they posted the transcript of the episode,

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Speaker 1: which we don't do, but someone else did and they

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Speaker 1: posted it because it was like January third, and I

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Speaker 1: asked you, I said, listen, how is the world gonna end?

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Speaker 1: And you said, here's what's gonna happen. Some kid's gonna

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Speaker 1: go off to China for like vacation. He's gonna come

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Speaker 1: back to his job at like Starbucks, and he's not

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Speaker 1: going to have enough insurance to cover his days off.

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Speaker 1: He's gonna have some sort of illness and he's gonna

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Speaker 1: spread it to everyone at his job, and it's gonna

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Speaker 1: spread throughout the country and it's gonna be awful, and

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Speaker 1: we're all like, alright, dude. It was a little paranoid,

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Speaker 1: and then it happened like a couple of months later.

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Speaker 1: I remember very distinctively, and it was I think you

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Speaker 1: were one of our last in studio guests too, so

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Speaker 1: early January. Don't you know, the world, don't ever ask

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Speaker 1: this fool to predict anything. He's a goddamn nightmare. It's creepy.

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Speaker 1: It's accurate that one. Well, thankfully we do seem to

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Speaker 1: be fingers crossed knock on wood, um, nearer to the

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Speaker 1: end than the beginning of this particular biblical plague. Um hopefully.

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Speaker 1: Uh So I thought we'd we'd talk about a subject

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Speaker 1: that has absolutly nothing to do with mediciner plagues. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but does have a lot to do with Malaysia. In fact,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the family that stole Malaysia today. Um.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of the brook dynasty? No? Are

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Speaker 1: they like the diamond people? No? Um, I think they

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Speaker 1: used to. I think they also owned a company that

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Speaker 1: made cookies. But no, they are a family who is

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Speaker 1: the only family in the history of imperialism that I'm

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Speaker 1: aware of, uh, to steal an entire country for their

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Speaker 1: own personal property, and that as like part of a country,

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Speaker 1: not as not steal it for the British Empire, for themselves,

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Speaker 1: for the Brooks. Yeah, for the Brooks. Yes, this one

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Speaker 1: for the Brooks. Yeah, a large chunk of Malaysia was

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Speaker 1: their personal property for quite for like a century. They

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Speaker 1: gave it up in the late nineteen forties. Oh my god, No,

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Speaker 1: I have not heard. I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: a fun one. We're mostly going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: James brook who was the guy who actually stole Malaysia um,

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Speaker 1: but which had a little bit about the rest of

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Speaker 1: his family at the end here. So without further ado,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the Brooks. So, once upon a time

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Speaker 1: on the island of Borneo there existed a powerful kingdom

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Speaker 1: called Brunei. Now there's still a Brunei in Borneo, and

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Speaker 1: it's got a sultan and he's super rich. Everybody's heard

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Speaker 1: of this. Brune I used to be for a while

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Speaker 1: was a protectorate of of the British crown and stuff,

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Speaker 1: and how that happened is kind of in this story

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Speaker 1: as well. Modern Brunei, though, is really tiny. It's like

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Speaker 1: a micro state, like right, It's it's smaller than some

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Speaker 1: people's neighborhoods. Back three or four hundred years ago, though

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Speaker 1: Brunei controlled a large chunk of the island of Borneo.

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Speaker 1: It was a sizeable country and it was a big

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Speaker 1: part of like kind of modern Indonesia Malaysia. Um. It

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Speaker 1: was a powerful force within that area. The reason why

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Speaker 1: it's a micro state today lays with the actions of

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Speaker 1: a single British family called the Brooks. There why it

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Speaker 1: went from like a whole glass country to a tiny

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Speaker 1: little micro state. So today Borneo is split between several

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Speaker 1: Malaysian states. It's part of Indonesia and the Kingdom of Brunei.

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Speaker 1: So the island of Borneo part of its Indonesia, part

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Speaker 1: of its Malaysia, part of it's the Kingdom of Brunei.

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Speaker 1: It's a very complicated place geographically, there's a lot going

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Speaker 1: on with map lines there um. But back in the

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Speaker 1: early eight hundreds it was pretty much just Brunei with

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Speaker 1: a little bit of Dutch um. The Dutch control with

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Speaker 1: chunk of it for god knows what reason, mainly for

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Speaker 1: trading spices and ship The Sultan of Sulu, who was

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Speaker 1: this vassal of the Spanish owned Philippines, also owned a

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Speaker 1: little bit of the east part, eastern part of Brunei

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Speaker 1: or eastern part of Borneo. But mostly Borneo was controlled

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Speaker 1: by Brunei. Now that changed in eighteen thirty nine with

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Speaker 1: the arrival of a very dumb, young adventurer named James Brooke.

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Speaker 1: He was born on April twenty nine, eighteen oh three,

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Speaker 1: as the son of Judge Thomas Brooke and Anna Maria

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Speaker 1: Stewart was you might guess from the judge part, James

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Speaker 1: was born into enormous wealth and privilege. His father was

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Speaker 1: in Yeah, an English judge. We're talking like judges back

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Speaker 1: when that means something not like not like now with

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Speaker 1: our fucking bullshit. Sorry, I might be going of court soon.

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Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't talk. They're so rad. Everybody loves a

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Speaker 1: good judge with the wigs man incredible look, powder and mallets.

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Speaker 1: Who doesn't like a mallet? This is These are judges

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Speaker 1: from the powder and Mallets era. And he's a judge

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Speaker 1: in um in India, so he's got to wear like

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Speaker 1: James's dad, Thomas has to wear like that whole judge

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Speaker 1: get up and like sweltering degree Indians something mallet situation.

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Speaker 1: They're like, I feel like I could, I could do things.

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Speaker 1: The past must have smelt so bad, you know, just

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Speaker 1: all the stuff they wore, lack of showers, and bathing,

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Speaker 1: just coding like themselves with powder on top of the

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Speaker 1: stenchion b O, just to try and mask it. Just

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Speaker 1: dousing themselves with tobacco smoke to try to dull it

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Speaker 1: for everyone to burn their noses out. Yeah. So Thomas

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Speaker 1: Brooke James Brooke is born eight oh three to a

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Speaker 1: judge named Thomas Brooke who lives in India. Um and

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Speaker 1: he ruled upon the High Court of Benares interpreting the

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Speaker 1: laws of the East India Trading Company, which ruled India

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Speaker 1: at this time. So he's not a judge for like

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Speaker 1: the government. He I mean, he is, but the government

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Speaker 1: is a corporation, like he is a corporate judge. It's

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Speaker 1: very cyberpunk, even though it's happening in eighteen o three.

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Speaker 1: You know, you have to like put in reference to

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Speaker 1: something I can understand, so because I have, you know,

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Speaker 1: the most part, a pretty awful American education. So do

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Speaker 1: you have to like put it in reference to a

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Speaker 1: game or some sort of Disney movie. Yeah, that covered

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Speaker 1: this the help. It's like it's like Blade Runner, but

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Speaker 1: everyone's dying of cholera all the time. So James had

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Speaker 1: a few siblings. He had an older brother, who joined

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Speaker 1: the army and again the army is the corporate army,

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Speaker 1: and died immediately, leaving James to be the sole inheritor

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Speaker 1: of the family fortune. He also had four sisters, two

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Speaker 1: of whom died young, not in India, but in the

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Speaker 1: filth Strewent Petri Dish that was nineteenth century Britain. Now

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Speaker 1: somewhat unusually for a boy boy born into his social class,

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Speaker 1: James spent the first twelve years of his life in India.

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Speaker 1: He fell in love with the country, it's culture and

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Speaker 1: the feeling of adventure that seemed ever present on the

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Speaker 1: outskirts of Empire. But he also grew up very aware

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Speaker 1: of the many failures of the East India Company. The

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Speaker 1: first Great Bengal Famine, which may have killed as many

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Speaker 1: as thirty million people accord, occurred in the early seventeen seventies,

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Speaker 1: about a generation before James's birth. The nars is on

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Speaker 1: the outskirts of Bengal, and the shock waves of so

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Speaker 1: much death and social collapse would have been evident even

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Speaker 1: in his youth. You know, twenty thirty years after thirty

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Speaker 1: million people die, you're going to see some of the

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Speaker 1: like the shock waves of that it's not. It hasn't

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Speaker 1: passed entirely. Um. Now we've covered that on a previous

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Speaker 1: episode Behind the Bastards. But the short of it is,

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Speaker 1: once the East India Company stole Bengal, the uprooted millennia

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Speaker 1: of agricultural traditions to maximize profits and wound up starving

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Speaker 1: the whole country to death. So, unlike many imperialists of

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Speaker 1: his era, James did not grow up with a rosy

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Speaker 1: idea of the British Empire. His biographer Nigel Barley notes,

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Speaker 1: quote India became, to the whole Brook Dynasty an enduring

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Speaker 1: and terrible example of how not to run a country. So,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever been to India, Benares Is includes as

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Speaker 1: a region that includes a modern day city called Varanasi,

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Speaker 1: which is where James would have spent a lot of time.

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Speaker 1: Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities on

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Speaker 1: the planet and it's the city that it hosts what's

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Speaker 1: called the Burning Got, which is where you can stand

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Speaker 1: along the banks of the Ganjis every night and watch

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Speaker 1: people burn the bodies of their loved ones. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: a place you can actually like, I've been there. It's

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Speaker 1: it's a a pretty powerful place to see. It's one

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Speaker 1: of those intense places I've ever been, and it would

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Speaker 1: have been. It was that intense when when James was there,

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Speaker 1: and he grew up as a big kind of like

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Speaker 1: childhood event of his watching these these burnings on the

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Speaker 1: banks of the Ban, the Ganjis and Varanasi. Um and

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Speaker 1: this has an impact on him. Um So Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously the year Appean dwellings in Benaras were deliberately built

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Speaker 1: upriver from where the actual like native Indian people lived,

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Speaker 1: but it would have been hard to miss this entirely,

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Speaker 1: and in general, James Brooke got to explore a lot

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Speaker 1: in his youth in India because Thomas Brooke was bad

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Speaker 1: at imposing boundaries on his son. He was not a

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Speaker 1: particularly bright man. He's described by a biographers as not

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Speaker 1: really clever, but a good talker, which in nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: English terms means he had a dull mind. But he

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Speaker 1: went to a good school, so he was a dumb

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Speaker 1: guy who had a good education. Yeah. Yeah, And this

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Speaker 1: is like you'll hear the people described this way a

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Speaker 1: lot in British imperial history. These are the kind of

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Speaker 1: men who build the British Empire. They are dumb men

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Speaker 1: who are well educated, which is a very dangerous combination.

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Speaker 1: Those are the kind of guys that will do genocides

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Speaker 1: for profits. Yeah. So Thomas was a doting father, which

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Speaker 1: is probably a part of why he allowed James to

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Speaker 1: stay in India so late. Normally, a kid like James,

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Speaker 1: born to the upper crust would have left India at

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Speaker 1: age six to go attend school in in England. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was that was it was uncommon for them to

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Speaker 1: stay in India too long, and part because Indie was

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Speaker 1: seen as being very dangerous, but in part because if

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Speaker 1: you're an upper crust kid, you want to get into

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Speaker 1: that British education system is as quickly as possible. Um. Now.

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Speaker 1: So again, the fact that he waited until he was

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Speaker 1: twelve was kind of odd, um and probably good for James.

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Speaker 1: When one considers all of the inhuman crimes of the

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Speaker 1: British Empire, it's worth noting that said crimes were carried

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Speaker 1: out by men who had been separated from their parents

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Speaker 1: at age six and shoved into a boarding school when

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Speaker 1: they were of kindergarten age. Well, the thing I'm sure

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Speaker 1: I'm going to hear more about this. But the sense

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Speaker 1: I'm getting is that even though he's seeing all this

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Speaker 1: bad stuff and he has the opportunity to be like

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Speaker 1: this shouldn't happen, or he sees the drawbacks at least

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Speaker 1: of this colonialism, he's not going to learn the right

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Speaker 1: lessons from it. That's the sense I'm gonna get, just

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Speaker 1: because I know the show and it bums me out already.

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Speaker 1: He is not going to learn the right lessons of it. Um.

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Speaker 1: But he's all going to grow up to be very

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Speaker 1: different from a lot of the other imperialists of his

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Speaker 1: era because he has a different background. Right. The whole

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Speaker 1: British education system is geared towards producing the kind of

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Speaker 1: men who can who can further the empire, and he

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Speaker 1: doesn't really get trapped in that in the same way

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Speaker 1: that other people do, um, because his parents keep him

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Speaker 1: out of it for a much longer time. UM. So

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Speaker 1: when he's twelve, he finally uh gets sent over to

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Speaker 1: England to go to boarding school. Um. And the fact

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Speaker 1: that he goes so much later than his peers makes

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Speaker 1: it a lot harder for him. All the other boys

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Speaker 1: of his age group had had five or six more

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Speaker 1: years of formal schooling. Than him by the time he

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Speaker 1: arrives at boarding school. He also had to adapt from

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Speaker 1: the freedom of unsupervised life in India to being the

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Speaker 1: prisoner of a boarding school. One of his biographers, Johnson

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Speaker 1: Jin writes, quote, the want of regular training was of

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Speaker 1: infinite disadvantage to young Brooke, who thus started life with

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Speaker 1: little knowledge and with no idea of self control. So

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Speaker 1: he's kind of a wild kid by the standards of

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Speaker 1: you know, British this idea at this point. Um his

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Speaker 1: education at King Edward the sixth Grammar School in Norwich

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Speaker 1: was something of a disaster. He hated arithmetic and grammar,

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Speaker 1: and he much preferred doodling in his notebooks. His early biographers,

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Speaker 1: who were all propagandists of the British Empire, guys like

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Speaker 1: Robert Payne Well write quote, it was remembered that he

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Speaker 1: never told a lie and demonstrated at an early age

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Speaker 1: a character of the utmost nobility. Uh. They'll say that

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Speaker 1: he was seen by the other boys as a natural leader,

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Speaker 1: and these are all lies. There's no evidence in any

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Speaker 1: of this, like um, and he was a very good

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Speaker 1: liar later in life. So this this, this is just

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Speaker 1: kind of like traditional biographer lying nonsense. The reality seems

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Speaker 1: to be that he was somewhat ostracized. His one good

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Speaker 1: friend was another boy named George Western. Uh, and one year,

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Speaker 1: instead of going off to holiday, George announced that he

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Speaker 1: was heading to see and joined the Navy as a

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Speaker 1: cabin boy. He probably died horribly, but James thought that

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Speaker 1: the whole idea sounded terribly romantic, and he couldn't stand

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Speaker 1: to stay at school without his only friend. So when

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Speaker 1: George leaves, he borrows money from a schoolmate and left

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Speaker 1: with a very public announcement that he too was going

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Speaker 1: to see. Uh. Now, the reality is that he actually

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Speaker 1: took the money he'd taken from a classmate and headed

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Speaker 1: to hide at his grandmother's yard. Uh. He camped in

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Speaker 1: her garden until her servants caught him. Actually, I'm sorting

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Speaker 1: to like him now, Yeah. No, I mean there's there's

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Speaker 1: parts of this kid that are fun. Yeah. So he uh,

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Speaker 1: he camps in his grandma's yard until her servants find him,

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Speaker 1: and she sends him back to his school headmaster. Um,

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Speaker 1: but the headmaster refuses to admit him because he'd proven

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Speaker 1: himself to be quote a rebel. Uh. This could have

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Speaker 1: caused great scandal, But not long after his parents returned

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Speaker 1: from India so his father could retire, and being again

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Speaker 1: very indulgent parents, they just hired a private tutor for

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Speaker 1: their son. They described him as a wayward pupil. We

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Speaker 1: might say he had severe a d h D because

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Speaker 1: he went on to quote torment and terrify this poor teacher,

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Speaker 1: which sounds like some cousins I've had this this kid

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Speaker 1: is this? Is this so interesting? Like, you know, to

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Speaker 1: imagine what these kinds of kids would be like now, Like,

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Speaker 1: I think one thing that probably has not changed is

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Speaker 1: if you come from money, no matter how bad a

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Speaker 1: student you are, no matter how many social failings you have,

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Speaker 1: you're still gonna be okay and end up running a

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Speaker 1: small country. Yeah, You're you're going to, like, even if

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Speaker 1: you're a bad student, even if you you you can't

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Speaker 1: abide by the rules, you're gonna wind up conquering like

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Speaker 1: a large chunk of Malaysia. I feel like this could

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Speaker 1: be like George W. Bush's story, Like if this we

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Speaker 1: put this like into a different time. Yeah, I will

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Speaker 1: say one of the differences between him is um he

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Speaker 1: strikes me as one of those like you know every

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Speaker 1: now and then you have those like rich kids who

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Speaker 1: drop out of fancy college and just like join the

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Speaker 1: military or something because I just got so much fucking energy.

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Speaker 1: He's kind of that, that sort of kid. He really

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Speaker 1: has this you know, like he's bad at school. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't really learn any of the things he's supposed to learn,

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Speaker 1: but he's he's devouring all of these like cheap kind

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Speaker 1: of pulp fiction novels that are coming out about fighting

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Speaker 1: pirates and fighting bandits in India, and like, you know,

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Speaker 1: these stories that are written to propaganda as the men

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Speaker 1: who are building the British Empire. Like he falls in

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Speaker 1: love with that ship. Yes, that's who he wants to

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Speaker 1: be as Alan Quarterman. I don't know if that fiction

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Speaker 1: comes in at this point in time. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it had been written, but like precursors to that

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00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:28,040
Speaker 1: were out at least, and he he grows up desperately

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Speaker 1: wanting to have a life of adventure in the near

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Speaker 1: in the far East, you know, like that's the you know,

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Speaker 1: he wants to meet uh what they would call like

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Speaker 1: strange and foreign cultures and and find jim stones and

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00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:44,080
Speaker 1: romance princesses and all that stuff. Yeah, um, and because

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Speaker 1: he comes from wealth and privilege, He's going to get

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Speaker 1: a chance to try to do all of that, which

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Speaker 1: is maybe why fiction should be illegal so adulthood. Adulthood

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Speaker 1: came early to Englishmen in those days. At age sixteen,

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Speaker 1: he was old enough to join the military. Just it's

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Speaker 1: actually not all that different now, Like I have friends

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Speaker 1: who joined at seventeen, so it hasn't changed a lot um. So,

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Speaker 1: being hungry for glory and generally unable to focus, that's

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Speaker 1: the path that he chose. He rose through the ranks quickly,

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Speaker 1: not on merit, but due to the fact that rich

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Speaker 1: families in those days could purchase ranks for their sons.

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Speaker 1: By age eighteen, he was a lieutenant, a job even

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Speaker 1: his most faughting biographers admit he was quote wholly unfitted for. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was stationed in India, where Robert Paine writes, quote

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Speaker 1: James was in fact a bad soldier with a happy,

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Speaker 1: go lucky attitude towards the army. His main task was

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Speaker 1: drilling the native troops, and he liked to tell the

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Speaker 1: story of how he was once drilling them and marching

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Speaker 1: them across the parade ground when it occurred to him

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Speaker 1: to tell them to march over a neighboring hill. He

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Speaker 1: never saw them again. Collected scandalous story like like they

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00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 1: just laughed. Yeah, they just left there, Like you think

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Speaker 1: this British Empire thing's gonna go anywhere. That's true. He

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Speaker 1: collected scandalous stories. This is not This will not be

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Speaker 1: the first time that his troops run away from him.

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Speaker 1: He collected scandalous stories about the officers and their wives

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Speaker 1: and liked retelling them. The army amused him, but made

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00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:22,520
Speaker 1: a few demands on him. There were occasional big game hunts.

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Speaker 1: There was always some pig sticking somewhere, but it was

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00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:27,960
Speaker 1: altogether more pleasant to bait the senior officers. He knew

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00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:30,520
Speaker 1: obscurely that something was wrong. He was bored by the

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00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:33,399
Speaker 1: society of white men thirsting for action and devilment. He

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00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:36,399
Speaker 1: was in a strange mood, caring and not decided, and

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00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 1: caring and not caring, decided and not decided. No woman

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00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:41,560
Speaker 1: seemed to have interested him in India, and he spent

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Speaker 1: a good deal of time composing poems, no better and

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Speaker 1: no worse than hundreds of poems written by his contemporaries.

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Speaker 1: We'll read one of his poems later weirdly erotic, so

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Speaker 1: my favorite. He wrote constantly to his parents while he

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Speaker 1: was stationed in India, and his focus was rather predictably

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00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,399
Speaker 1: self centered for a man of his age. Mostly he

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00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:07,399
Speaker 1: spread gossip about different wars and conflicts breaking out across

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Speaker 1: the Empire and his hope that he might get to

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Speaker 1: participate in them. He crowd over his promotions, and he

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00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: repeatedly begged his father for money. For a long span

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Speaker 1: of time. He repeatedly requested that his father by him

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00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:23,600
Speaker 1: an elephant, as he quote, simply cannot manage without one.

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Speaker 1: I want the teslas of the day, and considerably better

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Speaker 1: for the environment. If Elon Musk was just trying to

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Speaker 1: get everybody to write elephants, I would have an issue

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Speaker 1: with Yeah, that would be rad as hell. Act, everybody

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Speaker 1: with a how to like fucking shooting bows at each

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Speaker 1: other from the top of an elephant. Imagine bow hunting

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00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:49,000
Speaker 1: comes back into boat vogue too, probably still guns, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that would also be pretty rad. I would

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Speaker 1: love to get into a gunfight from the top of

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Speaker 1: an elephant anyway, So what you know, you want to

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Speaker 1: get into an elephant based gun fights, Sophie, Come on,

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Speaker 1: I don't grant that otto. But everyone's got a fucking

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Speaker 1: elephant that's actually gonna make that game. Someone's got to

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00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,959
Speaker 1: make that game. Yeah, they'll be cross fired and then

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00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:16,359
Speaker 1: the elephants will get hurt. And then you made me

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00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:19,639
Speaker 1: feel bad the elephant gun thing. Plus I however, I

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00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:21,919
Speaker 1: think of elephant fights. I think of that really scary,

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00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:26,080
Speaker 1: those evil elephants from one of the Rings. Oh the elephants, Yea,

383
00:20:26,280 --> 00:20:29,119
Speaker 1: they're not evil, they're just being used by evil men. No,

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00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 1: but they're so scary and they get hurt and it

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00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,240
Speaker 1: hurt my heart. You know it doesn't hurt my heart though, Robert.

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Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast, I hope

387
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:49,960
Speaker 1: one of them is an elephant manufacturer. Uh, we're back, um,

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Speaker 1: And I just want to thank Elephants International for sponsoring

389
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:57,680
Speaker 1: this podcast. Elephants International. When you want an elephant, they're

390
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:01,359
Speaker 1: basically your only choice. The only the only elephant brand

391
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:05,320
Speaker 1: I know is a skincarebra, racist skincarebra and drunk elephant.

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Speaker 1: Don't buy that, Oh Jesus, that I will say. From

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00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: the few months I spent living in India, you did.

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00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:15,640
Speaker 1: I did run into in a couple of cities. Once

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Speaker 1: in Delhi, and a few times in Jaipur, and then

396
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 1: one or two other places people writing elephants in traffic

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Speaker 1: with like eighteen wheelers next to them and stuff. And

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00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:26,200
Speaker 1: it's always seeing seeing like a crowded city street full

399
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 1: of traffic and just a dude sitting on an elephant

400
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 1: is just the most powerful flex I've seen in my

401
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: entire life. Just the look of those men writing their

402
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:39,440
Speaker 1: elephant through town, just like, Okay, you know what, that's

403
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:44,000
Speaker 1: unbelievably powerful energy. If they have like a boom box

404
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: with them while they're doing it, I'm all for it.

405
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:49,120
Speaker 1: I think that would be amazing. That would be rad

406
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 1: as hell. So at this point in his life, newly

407
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 1: on the cusp of adulthood, Brooke dreamed of making a

408
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,879
Speaker 1: quick fortune in the foreign service. There was always up

409
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,680
Speaker 1: trinity for grafton bribery in the service of the East

410
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 1: India Company. And then after he made his money, he

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00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:07,680
Speaker 1: planned to make a glorious return to the comfortable life

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Speaker 1: of an English gentleman. He wrote home, quote, my prospects

413
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: are now so good that a few years hence I

414
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:15,120
Speaker 1: hope to return to England with a fortune which will

415
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: render unnecessary my revisiting this country With what joy shall

416
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:20,679
Speaker 1: I give? With what joy? I give up what are

417
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 1: termed the luxuries of India for a cottage and a

418
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 1: snug fireside. This I am determined to do. So, he

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00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:29,200
Speaker 1: seems to have initially wanted to like, well, I don't

420
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: really want to stay in India. I want to make

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00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,359
Speaker 1: my money, come buy a farm at home, and never

422
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 1: leave again. You know, that's his initial goal. But this

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Speaker 1: changes with his first experience of action. In late eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety four, the company went to war with Burma. Now,

425
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 1: since this was a company army, much of the fighting

426
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Speaker 1: was then with the regular units, which had been risen

427
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: up and organized for profit by a corporate like entity

428
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:55,360
Speaker 1: whose employees acted as militant subcontractors. James volunteered to raise

429
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: up a unit of a regular cavalry locals who would

430
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: act as scouts for the campaign. Nigel Barley notes quote,

431
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 1: he had found his niche a big fish in a

432
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:06,679
Speaker 1: small pond, operating on the margins of established order, and

433
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: this was the kind of position to which he would

434
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,120
Speaker 1: gravitate all his life. So he finds this like very

435
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,719
Speaker 1: enticing and a lot better than you know, traditional military service.

436
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: Uh So, once he put together this unit, he had

437
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 1: to show it off to his superiors, and his standard

438
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,679
Speaker 1: way of doing this was to like get all of

439
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: his soldiers organized out and order them to charge. Charging

440
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: was in fact the only drill training that he ever

441
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: gave his men. Um just blitz. He was every blitz,

442
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 1: every play kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, he just blitz.

443
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: Just just go rush at those guys. Then one day

444
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: there's an actual battle and he orders his men to

445
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 1: charge a group of Burmese fighters, which they promptly did,

446
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: but then forgot to come back and he never saw

447
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: his soldiers again. He's the worst. I love it. It's

448
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: the worst. It's very funny. So in January James saw

449
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 1: his first close combat against the Burmes in Roumapur, a PSAM.

450
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 1: After shouting out what he what he described as a

451
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: few inspiring words to his comrades, he charged headlong into

452
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: a well defended elevated position, which is what most military

453
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: experts would call a bad idea. One has to say

454
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: that James Brooke was at least fully willing to engage

455
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: in the same foolhardy acts of bravery that he demanded

456
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: of his men, and on this occasion, stupid bravery worked.

457
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: The Burmes were so shocked to see a single man

458
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: charging them down, raving a saber and shrieking like a Hellian,

459
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 1: that they broke and ran. James earned a commendation for

460
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: bravery and was written up repeatedly for his raw physical courage. However,

461
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 1: this kind of bravery tends to bite people in the ass.

462
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: From the book White Raja quote. A few days after

463
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: the General and command heard of a strong stockade being

464
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: in front and sent out Lieutenant Brooke to reconnoiter, but

465
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: he was not able to return in time to prevent

466
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: the advance guard from falling into an ambuscade. As the

467
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: Foremost company turned a corner in the road, they were

468
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: received by a volley which knocked over a number of men.

469
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: In the midst of the confusion, Brooke came galloping up,

470
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: putting himself at the head of the men charged, and

471
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: Foremost fighting fell. When the affair was over and the

472
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: enemy driven from their stockades, Lieutenant Colonel Richards asked after

473
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Brooke, who he had seen fall, and he was

474
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: reported dead. Take me to his body, was his reply,

475
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: and they rode to the spot. Poor Brooks, said, the colonel,

476
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:18,479
Speaker 1: getting off his horse to have a last look at him,

477
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: kneeling over him, he took him in his hand. He's

478
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: not dead, he cried, and instantly had him removed to camp.

479
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: So Brooks active military career had asked, like his actual

480
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: time fighting had been about two days, and because of

481
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: the severity of his injuries, he was spent the next

482
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: five years recovering. So that's kind of the next half

483
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: decade of Brooks life is he gets shipped back home

484
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 1: because his injuries are so severe, and he spends most

485
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: of it like in bed or in hospitals that the

486
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: doctor and me just kind of wants to know. Maybe

487
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: they didn't say it, but what do they say? What

488
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 1: his injuries were? That brings us to one of the

489
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: great mysteries over James Brooke. You're gonna like this one.

490
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: So most sources at the time would note somewhat surreptitiously

491
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: that he had been shot in the jump um. This

492
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: rumor is common even today. I found a Daily Beast

493
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 1: article that included the line, A painful war injury in

494
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: what Victorian's delicately called his private parts probably discouraged brook

495
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: from marrying. Because this guy again he conquers a large

496
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: chunk of land he never has natural descendants, right, So

497
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: one of the rumors that was kind of spread, may

498
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: have been spread by him, was that he had been

499
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: he'd been shot in the junk and so he was

500
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,959
Speaker 1: unable to reproduce and that's why he never had any descendants.

501
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: Now more reputable modern scholarship suggests that this may have

502
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: been a face saving lie, because depending on what you

503
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: read and who you ask, it's likely that Brooke was

504
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: either gay, a pedophile, or a bisexual man with a

505
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: quasi sexual interest in extremely young men. We don't really know.

506
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: We'll talk about this a lot throughout the episode, and

507
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: I'll see where you land on this because one of

508
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: the reasons why we don't really know if he's gay

509
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: or a pedophile is a lot of times he's romancing

510
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: people who are called boys, but who are also legally

511
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 1: adults in the society that he's So there's sixteen seventeen,

512
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: but that's also their adults who were like lieutenants in

513
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: the military. So it I I don't know, like how

514
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: he it's odd, it's very it's very uncomfortable, and there's

515
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: a lot of very kind of abusive stuff in Brooks

516
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: background with this, But we don't know. I don't know

517
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 1: entirely how to characterize the man um but it seems

518
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: likely that he was not in fact shot in the junk,

519
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: but that was a kind of a face saving thing

520
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: because he was not interested in women as a general rule.

521
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: That seems accurate to say, not super interested in women,

522
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: and he needed you know, you could get punished with

523
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: execution for being a gay man and this, and it

524
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: happened like the British like put people to death for

525
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: being homosexual. So if he was, even if he was

526
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: just kind of not straight like, even if he may

527
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: have been sort of like more on the a sexual

528
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 1: side of things, we don't really know. He had to

529
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: come up with the reason why he wasn't having kids,

530
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: and may have been shot in the junk was the reason.

531
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: It's a good way to get sympathy. Yeah, good way

532
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: to get sympathy, good way to have people not ask

533
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: anymore about But that conversation, it's pretty much right there, somebody, Yeah,

534
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: well I have a terrible injury and it's rendered me infertile.

535
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: You know, people aren't going to ask much more, got it.

536
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 1: So we don't exactly know how he was injured, but

537
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: it was bad you know, five years of recovery time

538
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: is a pretty severe, um, pretty severe injury, and obviously

539
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: medicine mac then is mostly like screaming and mercury. But um,

540
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: it's a little bit better today. I should also note

541
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: that information would come over come forward in the early

542
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties to suggest that he had at least one

543
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: bastard son that he hit away from the public eye. Again,

544
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: we don't really know. It's all very muddled with this, dude.

545
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: We'll talk some more about this later. So in any case,

546
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: whatever the matter of his actual injury is, whatever the

547
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: case of his sexuality is, Brooks spent nearly five years recuperating.

548
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: He was better by eighteen thirty, but his journey back

549
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: to India to resume his service with the company was

550
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: dogged by bad weather and worse luck. He didn't arrive

551
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: in Madras until twelve days before his deadline to return

552
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: to service. Out his dad, being like an influential person

553
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: within the company, was able to kind of pull some

554
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: strings to get him more leave time. Um, but Brooke

555
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 1: like didn't want to. Basically, what happens is he winds

556
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: up arriving late, realizes he's not going to get to

557
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: India in time for his deadlines. So he applies for

558
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,719
Speaker 1: a position to serve the company in Madras and that

559
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: was refused and this made James Brooke very angry, so

560
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: he resigned rather than get dismissed from the company. This

561
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: was his public claim, at least now, the reality seems

562
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: to be that his journey back through company controlled Southeast

563
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: Asia had really like he'd seen a lot of things

564
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: that made him angry at the way the company did things,

565
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: and he no longer wanted to serve them. Um and

566
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from a rite up by the University

567
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: of Canberra here. Brookes subsequent musings in his journal suggest

568
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: a growing divergence between the company's activities in India and

569
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: his own emerging ideas about Britain and its role in Asia,

570
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: which might have motivated him to seek new opportunities. He

571
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: continued on in Castle Huntly to Chi that's the ship

572
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: that he's traveling on to China via Penang, Malacca and

573
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: Singapore with him on board, where James Templer, whose brother

574
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: John would become his close friend and supporter, and Arthur Crookshank,

575
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: who would also later become one of Brooks protegees and

576
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: Borneo the ideas Brooke began to set down in his

577
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: journal June. In Pain's view, bemoaned the deterioration of the

578
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: native character arising from their intercourse with the whites. So

579
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: you see what he's saying. This is interesting because it

580
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: talks about the kind of racist that Brooke is becoming.

581
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,479
Speaker 1: Because you have different kinds of racists in the British Empire.

582
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: You have the people these non white people's are inferior

583
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: to us and we need to rule them. And you

584
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: have these these non white people's um are being hurt

585
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: by us. Uh, and so I need to like I

586
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: need to uh fix them right. And then you have

587
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: the idea that like I need to like raise up

588
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: these people who are who are not inferior inherently but

589
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: have an inferior culture. I mean to make their culture

590
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: of it. There's a couple of different kinds of racists,

591
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: like so close to getting it, but then just takes

592
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: that left turn when you should just kept going with

593
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: that thought. Yeah, and and book is I don't know

594
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: if you call this the least offensive kind of the

595
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: racist that you could be in the British Empire. Service

596
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: but he rather than being kind of the standard sort

597
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: of white supremacist, he's the noble, savage kind of white supremacist, right,

598
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: and he felt that the decadent values of modernity were

599
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: responsible for ruining the noble natives of India. Now interspersed

600
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: within this bigotry was a morsel of troop truth. Brooke

601
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: had spent his early career stumbling into a subcontinent that

602
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: had seen its cultural substrate torn apart in the name

603
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: of short term profits. Inter Village crop and water sharing

604
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: arrangements built up over centuries to mitigate the shifting tides

605
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: of climate had been ripped apart by venal corporate administrators

606
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: who wanted to suck as much money out of the

607
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: area as quickly as possible. This had reduced many people

608
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: who had once been independent farmers two beggars on the street.

609
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: The introduction of hard liquor had also had a visible

610
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: negative impact on many of the now urban poor. James

611
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: Brooke did not entirely blame his fellow English for the

612
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: state of affairs um which is again part of his racism.

613
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: As he reached the Malay Peninsula, he had his first

614
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: close contact with Chinese people, many of whom ran businesses

615
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: and carried on trading operations in the region, and he

616
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,719
Speaker 1: blamed a lot of what he was seeing in India

617
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: on the Chinese. He wrote, quote, their habits are most filthy,

618
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: their dress in the most unbecoming, their faces the most ugly,

619
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: and their figures the most ungraceful to any people under

620
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: the sun. They appear cut out of a log of

621
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: wood by the hand of someone skillful savage. Their mouths

622
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: are wide, their noses snub, and their eyes small and

623
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: set and crooked in their heads. When they move they

624
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: swing arms, legs and body like a paper clown pulled

625
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: by a string. And to sum it up, all their

626
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: color is a dirty yellow. So he is a really

627
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: racist against Chinese people. So he has this view that like,

628
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: Indian people are inherently noble and we've corrupted them, and

629
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: they've also been corrupted by these like by the Chinese

630
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: right um who he is super racist against like and

631
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: this will continue to be a major factor in his life.

632
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: He is a huge anti Chinese bigot um and as

633
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: a huge anti Chinese bigot, James and a group of

634
00:32:57,280 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: these guys that I mentioned are on the boat with

635
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: him the world. This is yeah, yeah, the guys described

636
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: as his protege. These are his friends. They might also

637
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: be his lovers. Um, it's kind of hard to tell. Um.

638
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: But at one point, while they're in Southeast Asia, Um,

639
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: they dress up in yellow face. Uh yeah man. Yeah.

640
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: A jape involved him and shipmates disguising themselves as Chinese

641
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: at the Feast of Lanterns in order to penetrate the

642
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: city declared out of bounds to Europeans. Being once in

643
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: the whole party threw off disguise and broke some of

644
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: the lanterns, which were accounted precious. They barely escaped with

645
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: their lives. And how escape was possible is the marvel.

646
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: James would always have it just it cracks me up

647
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: because if they really did that, it cracks me up

648
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: because it's like they do they really believe that they

649
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: fooled anybody, did they Actually, we're getting away with this.

650
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: They don't even know. They don't even know. We're dressed

651
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: in local garb. Look at us, we're nailing it. We're

652
00:33:54,680 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: nailing this. They don't even know. Yeah, they're they're they're

653
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: bad at this and they do get caught. Um. So

654
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: James would later learn to work with Chinese traders in

655
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: the land that he eventually conquered, but he never got

656
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: over his bigotry against them, which would eventually lead to

657
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,439
Speaker 1: horrific bloodshed. But at this point Brooke had been kind

658
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: of He recognized the evils of the East India Company

659
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: and some of the evils of colonialism. He knew there

660
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 1: was something immoral going on in all of this um

661
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,720
Speaker 1: but unfortunately his reaction to this was to invent ways

662
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 1: that he might do colonialism but nicer. Right. His solution

663
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: to this is obviously an an unethical system, is I

664
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: can do it better, as opposed to maybe we should

665
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: get the funk out of here. Yeah. He even picked

666
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: out a spot, Penang in Malaysia, that he thought was

667
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 1: ripe for his kinder sort of colonialism. And I'm gonna

668
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 1: quote from the University of Canberra again. He towed with

669
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: the idea of Penang as the spot on which the

670
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: experiment should be made for a permanent British colony in

671
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: which individuals could reap the rewards of their own effort,

672
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: unlike under the company's monopoly. Later, his interest grew to

673
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: include Sumatra. Brooke and his companions soon developed a plan

674
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: to return to the Eastern Archipelago for and seek for adventure.

675
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: They called it the Schooner Plan, awaiting only the financial

676
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: means to implement it. So this dude, like, he's not likable.

677
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: There's no qualities I've seen that are redeeming. He's just

678
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: like a fucking piece of ship. I mean, they all

679
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: they all kind of are like. It's he's he's a

680
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: he's a young he's a man who was raised to

681
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: believe that he and people like him ought to rule

682
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: the world, and he recognizes people actually ruling are bad

683
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: at it, and the solution is for me to do

684
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: it better. You know. Yeah, it's not great. He's he sucks.

685
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: I don't like, yeah, this is behind the bastards. You

686
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: might have heard of it. Yeah, why, thank you, Robert,

687
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: thank you so much. No, but I'm just saying a

688
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: lot of times when you're when we do these episodes,

689
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 1: and it's like you can find like one thing where

690
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, well, the one redeeming thing. I mean,

691
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: this is such a small thing. But he does seem

692
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: to have a genuine affection for India at least, which

693
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: is very little, and it's a slightly more mellow form

694
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: of racism. But that's I guess something for the time.

695
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: I don't like him saying it. Now. I'm still on defense.

696
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: I'm still a defense about this guy. I'm not I'm

697
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: gonna wait till the ends I make up my mind.

698
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 1: I'm like forty minutes in not into him. Him he

699
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,360
Speaker 1: could still pull out of this tail span. He does not.

700
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: The schooner plan, and a schooner is a type of boat,

701
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 1: was very much the dream of an upper class English schoolboy. Basically,

702
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: his idea was that, like he and his best buddies

703
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: that he'd like met and hung out with on this

704
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: boat and traveled around Southeast Asia with, we're going to

705
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,399
Speaker 1: like learn how to navigate and sail together under get

706
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 1: his ship and sail to get away under his leadership,

707
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: to have like adventures and participate in glorious bad goals

708
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: and get rich. It was. His biographer describes it as

709
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: quote an all boys adventure written large upon the real world.

710
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: So again it's the kind of ship that he reads

711
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: in these in these fantasy books that are very popular

712
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: among young English boys of this day. He just wants

713
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: to do it for real, and because he's a rich kid,

714
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: he's going to get a chance to how old is

715
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: he at this point, He's like early twenties of this.

716
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: So it was always unclear how the schooner plan was

717
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: going to lead to wealth and influence, for especially how

718
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: it was going to lead to them creating colonies in Malaysia. UH.

719
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: When James returned home to England and broke the news

720
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: to his doting dad that he'd resigned his commission with

721
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 1: the East India Company, he tried to convince the old

722
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: judge to invest money in this scheme. He assured his

723
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: father that with the vehicle quote equally capable of fight

724
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:51,800
Speaker 1: or flight, he and his friends would be able to

725
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: make a fortune trading through Southeast Asia and having adventures

726
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: in between deliveries. Now this is have you seen Stepbrothers.

727
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: This is the scene where they show the stepdad the

728
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: video boats and hose, boats and hose and they're they're

729
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 1: trying to build their media company and they're like, check

730
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: it out. We need a boat where it's gonna be awesome.

731
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: Boats and hose that's all he needs. And that's so

732
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:20,359
Speaker 1: it's like, um, it's it's like that's what's happening. But

733
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: he's saying, we need to buy us a warship, like

734
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: we we need we need to get like a battleship

735
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: so that we can sail around and have adventures and

736
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: that will be profitable somehow, Dad, trust me. So it's

737
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: more like boats and guns and boys as opposed to

738
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: now being a practical man. James's dad told him that

739
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 1: his plan was nonsense, warned him that he had no

740
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: head for business, and that even if he was good

741
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: at business, working on a trading vessel was one of

742
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: the most dangerous and miserable jobs that a person could get.

743
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,399
Speaker 1: But James kept badgering his old man, and as he'd

744
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: done with the elephant, his dad eventually threw down the

745
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 1: money to buy a two ninety tons slaver brig. It's

746
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: called a slaver big because it used to be used

747
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: for transporting slaves. You know, um no, we got that,

748
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah. So Iphi's liking this guy,

749
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: less and less. Less and less. Dad also not it.

750
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: He's This is the era where slavery has been outlawed

751
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: and the British Empire is fighting a crusade across the

752
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 1: world against slavery that allows them to do more colonialism,

753
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: like they're conquering land and subjugating people in the name

754
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: of ending the slave trade. That's a lot of what's

755
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: happening in this period. So, um, that's why, like this

756
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: is in the news right now. Like, but there's been

757
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: a couple of cases recently where it was some fucking

758
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: I think it might have been pierced more than somebody,

759
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: some British person was, Like, nobody has done more to

760
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: fight against racism than the British Empire. Um. And what

761
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 1: the referring to is all of these different anti slavery

762
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: wars and crusades that the British Empire fought, and what

763
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: they neglect to mention is that they were always used

764
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: to subjugate people. They were used as justifications to militarily

765
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: occupy places and and the denying pe their sovereignty. Like

766
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: that was the only reason for these crusades. Um, it was.

767
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 1: It was I don't know, a modern Americans can't imagine this,

768
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: but imagine seeing a real problem and your government uses

769
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,439
Speaker 1: that real problem to justify conquering of people and taking

770
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: their stuff. Again, very hard to very hard to visualize. Yeah. Yeah,

771
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: So James had only been home a few months when

772
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 1: he convinced his dad to buy the boat, and by

773
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: all accounts those few months had been much more than

774
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: enough for him. He wrote to a friend that quote,

775
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: I feel the irksomeness of civilized society greater than ever,

776
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: and it's bonds shall not hold me long. My own

777
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:37,400
Speaker 1: families speak to me of the years we are to

778
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: pass together, and that it always makes me sad to

779
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 1: think that in my innermost heart, I have determined to

780
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: plunge into some adventure that will bestow activity and employment.

781
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 1: So he's he comes home and quits the company, and

782
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: his family is happy to have him back and be like, Oh,

783
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: We're all going to get to live together in England,

784
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: and James kind of feels bad because he has again

785
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: the kind of the shot of adrenaline that he had

786
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: participating in that war. His experience traveling around is convinced

787
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: him like, I'm not gonna stay in England, Like I'm

788
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: gonna go get into dumb adventures in Southeast Asia. Um.

789
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: And he knows that um. And so in early eighteen

790
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: thirty four, James finds himself with the giant boat purchased

791
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: by his dad, which had a half dozen cannons and

792
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: a hold for full of merchandise that he was going

793
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: to trade in Singapore. He hired a crew in a captain,

794
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: and he brought along some friends who again probably were

795
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: romantic interests, and he set sail for the Far East.

796
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 1: The trip was almost immediately a disaster jamesknew. James knew

797
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: very little about boats or the nautical life, but he

798
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: insisted on being in command over the venture, even though

799
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,879
Speaker 1: he'd hired a perfectly good captain. That said, his main

800
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: issue with the captain he hired is something most of

801
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,720
Speaker 1: us will find sympathetic. Back in the early eighteen hundreds,

802
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: British naval discipline was held up with what I think

803
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill later described as room sodomy and the lash.

804
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,439
Speaker 1: So basically, the reason that like our boats are able

805
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: to function is that we get our crews drunk at night,

806
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: they get to funk each other, and we beat them

807
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: when they break any rules. Right like that in the

808
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: beatings were vicious, like the kind of whipping sailors would

809
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: receive from minor and flat fractions of discipline are not

810
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 1: unsimilar to the kind of whippings you would hear about

811
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: slaves getting like people would get sentenced to sometimes hundreds

812
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: of lashes with a leather whip in the back like

813
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: people sailors died getting whipped. It was pretty pretty ugly

814
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: naval discipline in this period of time. Um. Now, this

815
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: uh was seen as necessary because obviously, when you're on

816
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: a boat, especially the kind of boats they had back then,

817
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: fucking up can get hundreds of people killed. Right, Which

818
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: is not to say that it's cool to whip people

819
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: for a problem like that, but that's why they saw

820
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: it as necessary. If you don't have strict naval discipline,

821
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 1: you're going to get everyone on the boat killed. James

822
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: was not comfortable with cruelty. He preferred kindness, and he

823
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 1: felt that sailors could be kept in line just as

824
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: well by a loving attitude. He later wrote on the

825
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: subject of discipline, quote, it was necessary to form men

826
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: to my purpose, and by a line of steady and

827
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: kind conduct, to raise up a personal regard for myself

828
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,399
Speaker 1: and an attachment for the vessel. Now we don't really

829
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: know if this worked on board his first voyage, but

830
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: it definitely piste off the captain and made for a

831
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: tremendously unpleasant trip. Now, to make matters worse, James was

832
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 1: as horrible as trade as his father had expected. He

833
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: eventually sold their cargo for a massive loss in Macau

834
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: and sailed back to England of failure. But he was

835
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: still a rich failure because his parents are rare rich,

836
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: and his parents also had no desire to chastise him

837
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: for his funk ups. Soon after he landed back at home,

838
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 1: his dad died and left all of his surviving children

839
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:32,240
Speaker 1: a considerable inheritance. James received some thirty thousand pounds sterling,

840
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: which is the equivalent of about four or five million

841
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: dollars today. So now he's independently wealthy. His first voyage

842
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: has been a massive failure, but his dad dies and

843
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: he's rich. He doesn't have to ask his family for

844
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: anything else. So as soon as he gets back, he

845
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: sells his old boat and he buys a new one.

846
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: And this one is a yacht. Uh And when I

847
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: say yacht here, I'm not talking about like just a

848
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: rich guy boat. A yacht in this period of time

849
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: is a military vessel. This was actually one of the

850
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: old royal yachts that he buys um and it has

851
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: a full complement of cannons. It's got something like a

852
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: dozen big guns. And because of how British naval law

853
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: was at the time it legally counted as a military vessel.

854
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: This gave James the right to fly a special naval

855
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: flag and to wear a special naval uniform, and to

856
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: receive salutes from British naval vessels. While English sailors would

857
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: know that this was not really a ship of the

858
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: Royal Navy anymore, these perks meant that, as far as

859
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: any foreigners knew, James was captaining a British Royal Navy

860
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: vessel and representing the British government. And he will never

861
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: go out of his way to disabuse them of this notion. Right,

862
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: that's going to be important for what comes later. So

863
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: the British are just okay with this because it's like,

864
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: this is a super rich guy and this is how

865
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:43,959
Speaker 1: we treat our rich people. They can do whatever they want.

866
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that what's happening Again, A lot of

867
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 1: the British kind of military apparatus at this point is corporate,

868
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: so they're not against the idea of people of private

869
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: entities representing the empire with military vessels. He buys a

870
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: naval vessel that is still part of the navy, and

871
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: because because of what this vessel is, he retains the

872
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: right to represent himself as kind of like UM, almost

873
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 1: like a naval national guard sort of thing, right, And

874
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: I think that is part of the idea. If there's

875
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: an emergency, all of these guys who own these different votes,

876
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,839
Speaker 1: we can call on them to serve UM. But yeah,

877
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: that's kind of the situation. Yeah, it's it's gonna get

878
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: it's gonna get funds. So, with his yacht, which was

879
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: called the Royalist, loaded with firepower, and of course a

880
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: bunch of new friends, some of whom were probably lovers,

881
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: James Brooks sets off on a new adventure, and again

882
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: the goal was Malaysia, this time a place called sarah Wak,

883
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: ruled over by the Sultan of Brunei. They left Port

884
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: on July thirty nine. Upon arrival, their first task was

885
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: to carry out a series of gun salutes, which means

886
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: firing cannons wildly into the air. This was how Brooke

887
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: decided he was going to signal his peaceful intentions to

888
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: the locals. Yeah, I see this going wrong. As you

889
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: might expect, there's a couple of I mean, cannon salutes

890
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,919
Speaker 1: are common things at this time, so it's not necessarily

891
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 1: an aggressive act. But it's also not for nothing that

892
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: he does this, because it lets everyone in sarah wak No,

893
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: this guy's got a bunch of giant cannons right like that.

894
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: It's it's, it's, it's It makes it clear that if

895
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: you funk with this guy, he's got he's got some shit. Um.

896
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: So you know, James fires his cannons and then he

897
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: sends a boat ashore to meet the local ruler, Rajah

898
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: Muda Hashim. Now, this guy Hashim is basically the local

899
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: governor under the command of the Sultan of Brunei. Um,

900
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: he's one of the Sultan's uncles, I think. So he

901
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: and Hashim smoked tobacco from foot long cigarettes, and they

902
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 1: drink tea. They listened to a band, and they do

903
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 1: all of the polite stuff you'd expect from a royal welcome.

904
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: Hashim and his people assumed Brooke was there representing the

905
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: British Empire, since he was dressed in his ship bore

906
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 1: the flag of the Royal Navy. James Brooke told the

907
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: Raja that he was just a private person, but he

908
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: also presented the ruler with official documents that he claimed

909
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: from British authorities. As a result, everyone there assumed he

910
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: as in fact an agent of the British government. He

911
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: told them his plan in the country was just to

912
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: survey the coasts and collect specimens of the local fauna,

913
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 1: but no one believed this either. When they got to talking,

914
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: the Rajah told Brook that he was in an air

915
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: in the area to put down a rebellion by the

916
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: local Malaise, who were laying siege to the local capital,

917
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 1: and we're purported to be allied with a nearby unfriendly sultan, Rajah.

918
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: The Rajah's forces were not well armed, or well trained,

919
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: or particularly numerous, and neither were the rebels. In practice,

920
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,439
Speaker 1: this meant that this war was mostly just a bunch

921
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: of inconclusive street fights, with neither side able to really

922
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 1: bring things to a close. The Rajah initially tried to

923
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: downplay the rebellion, framing it as more of a mild

924
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: squabble between children. James offered to help him anyway, and

925
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: this sort of led the Rajah to believe that he

926
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 1: was doing this on behalf of the British Empire. Nigel

927
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: Barley writes quote, they, being the authorities in Brunei, had

928
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: no idea they were entering into a political alliance not

929
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: with a government, but with a spoiled young man from

930
00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: Bath squandering his inheritance. So within hours, this oiled young

931
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 1: rich kid with a yacht had turned himself to the

932
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 1: ostensible commander of a foreign military and their efforts to

933
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: crush an insurgent rebellion. If he understood the gravity of

934
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: the situation, James did not show it. When he landed

935
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: on Sarah Wak, Sure, he convinced himself that he was

936
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: the first white man to set foot there, and so

937
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:18,320
Speaker 1: he went barefoot through the jungle. This proved to be

938
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,879
Speaker 1: a bad idea, and his feet got horribly infected, which

939
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: rendered him unable to walk under his own power, and

940
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: he would have to be carried around for the next

941
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 1: several days. So stupid, He's doing so great life though

942
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: he's nailing it upward, fails upward every turn. He has

943
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: failed upward into commanding the royal effort to fight an

944
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: insurgency in Malaysia. I mean, just like the like scam

945
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: of it all, and then like he does all these

946
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: unnecessary things. I don't I don't like it. I mean

947
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: he's just having a good time, He's just having oats.

948
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: The injury did not dim brooks instant enthusiasm for the

949
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 1: wilds of sarah Wak. He took his boats sailing to

950
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: the interior, where it was immediately attacked by pirates made

951
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: up of a knuckle of another local people, the Dyaks Uh.

952
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:10,399
Speaker 1: These Dyak pirates killed several Malays before being driven off,

953
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: and James considered this all to have been very exciting.

954
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 1: When it was explained that the Dyaks had a pin

955
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,320
Speaker 1: shot for taking and preserving heads, he was even more excited.

956
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: With very little knowledge of either group, Brooks started stereotyping them,

957
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna quote from the book White Rajah again.

958
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: His infatuation with adolescence was being fully extended to to

959
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: include the whole supposedly childlike people's. They were all becoming

960
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: midshipman under his especial care, and already he was leaping

961
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: to judgment, forming the stereotypes that would anchor brook rule.

962
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: The Malays were natural gentlemen, but when bad could be

963
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: sinuous and duplicitus, and they were lazy. The Dyaks were

964
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,320
Speaker 1: naturally honest, chased, passionate, and faithful people of the land,

965
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 1: not the town. It was like the difference between cats

966
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: and dogs repeatedly. The DIACs are explicitly compared to hunting

967
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: dogs with a bad master. The master may be changed

968
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:58,959
Speaker 1: for a good one, but the dogs will take time

969
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: to learn to not not a snap and bite, but

970
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: they were a good breed and they would eventually be

971
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:08,919
Speaker 1: won by kindness. Yeah, yeah, real. And again this all

972
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,720
Speaker 1: he starts coming up with these ideas about people because

973
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,239
Speaker 1: he convinces this local ruler that he's a great military mind.

974
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 1: And the ruler sends him to the interior and he

975
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: gets a bunch of people killed in an ambush. Oh,

976
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: he's just the worst, these guys murdering all of my

977
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: these guys murdering all of them that I were sent

978
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: out with. They're like good dogs with bad rulers. He's like,

979
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 1: as long as Crookshanks is okay, I don't care that.

980
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 1: It really is the attitude. No one white has died yet,

981
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: So no one has died yet in his right, you

982
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,359
Speaker 1: know who won't get a bunch of a bunch of

983
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 1: Malaysian volunteer soldiers murdered in an ambush and then right

984
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: racist propaganda about them. We are back. So with his

985
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:00,760
Speaker 1: adventure done, and only some of them and the Rajah

986
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:03,240
Speaker 1: had lent him dead. Brooke considered his visit to sarah

987
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: Waka's success, which again included him going into the jungle

988
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: briefly and getting a bunch of people killed. He promised

989
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: to return in a few months and then sailed off

990
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: to funk around in other parts of Southeast Asia. This

991
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: one up not being as fun as he expected, so

992
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: he headed to Singapore after a few weeks, where stories

993
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: of his pirate fighting exploits had spread. Now, local merchants,

994
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: who long had to deal with direct pirates, praised him

995
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: for bringing the might of the British Empire against those

996
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: dastardly bandits. Being recognized by a couple of dudes absolutely

997
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: ignited James's ego, and he went home to his and

998
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: he wrote home to his mother quote, I really am

999
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 1: becoming a great man, dearest mother. The world talks about me.

1000
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: The rulers of England make threatened to write me. Newspapers

1001
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: call me patriotic and adventurous. The geographical society pays me compliments.

1002
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: Am I not a great man? No, bitch, you are

1003
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:55,880
Speaker 1: not a great man. His adventures include getting some guys

1004
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: killed in the jungle and then briefly firing a bunch

1005
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: of cannons that pirates and news like that, that's what

1006
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 1: he's done, completely up his feet and completely this is amazing.

1007
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: Am I not a great man? Mommy? Am I great? Yes? Mama?

1008
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: So the British Governor of Singapore did not think that

1009
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,800
Speaker 1: that James Brooke was a great man. In fact, he

1010
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: yelled at James for inserting himself into politics with a

1011
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 1: sovereign nation. He's basically like, you're just a guy with

1012
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: a boat. How dare you like stick yourself in the

1013
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:30,839
Speaker 1: middle of a civil war? Like? What is wrong with you?

1014
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,799
Speaker 1: So there is at least a single rational person in

1015
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 1: this story so far. Brooke was so offended by this

1016
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 1: that he left Singapore straightaway and sailed for sarah Wak,

1017
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: where he could hang out more with his new friends,

1018
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:44,959
Speaker 1: only some of whom he had gotten killed the first time.

1019
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: Now the Rajah was happy to have him back, or

1020
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: more accurately, was happy to have his cannons back, and

1021
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: James was introduced to the Raja's younger brother, Pince Badrudine,

1022
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: who was hot as fuck. Let me like this, this

1023
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 1: dude smoking. You have to assume smoking because of the

1024
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 1: very thirsty letter that James writes back to his mom,

1025
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: interesting quote. I wish you could know the panjarin bud Rudine, who,

1026
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 1: with the amiable and easy temper of his brother Muda Hashim,

1027
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,720
Speaker 1: combines decision and abilities quite astonishing in a native prince

1028
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 1: and a directness of purpose seldom found in an Asiatic.

1029
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: As a companion, I found him superior to most of them,

1030
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:28,280
Speaker 1: to most about me. And there is something particularly interesting

1031
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: in sounding the depths and shadows of an intelligent native

1032
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: mind and examining them freed from the trammels of court etiquette. Wow,

1033
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 1: it's amazing how even the dumb people back then could write. Well,

1034
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: it is right, like like he's so dumb, but he

1035
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: can actually actually put together words in the way they sounded. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1036
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: that's that's the values of a classical education. I get.

1037
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: But he's I mean, that's an incredibly horny letter. Yeah,

1038
00:53:56,600 --> 00:54:00,239
Speaker 1: he's thirsty. That's what the kids say. Bud Rudine was

1039
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: very young, and at this point James had both the

1040
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: wealth and worldliness to seem very impressive to an inexperienced

1041
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: young prince. He adopted James as a mentor and started

1042
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: drinking wine and copying the way the Englishman dressed. James

1043
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: rewarded this behavior with lavish attention and constant praise. When

1044
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 1: it came time for James to go help the Rajah

1045
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: with his war, there was no question that Bodredine would

1046
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 1: stay behind. The Rajah had phrased the rebellion as less

1047
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: of a war and again more of a petty squabble

1048
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 1: between children. This was not quite accurate, but it certainly

1049
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 1: was not war as James had known it. In Burma

1050
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: and Sarawak, both sides sides tended to fight by building

1051
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:39,239
Speaker 1: fortifications and engaging in short skirmishes in which people rarely died,

1052
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: and then ran back to build more fortifications. There was

1053
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 1: not much willingness to charge headlong into decisive battle, and

1054
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: this frustrated Brooke, who again only knew how to charge

1055
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: headlong into the enemy. He wrote, quote, we found the

1056
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: Grand Army in a state of torpor, eating, drinking, and

1057
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: walking up to the forts back and again daily. But

1058
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 1: having built these imposing structures, and their appearance not driving

1059
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: the enemy away, they were at a loss of what

1060
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: to do next. James took it upon himself to break

1061
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:07,920
Speaker 1: the stalemate. The only way he knew how from the

1062
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: book White Rajah quote. The solution was as always that

1063
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 1: they should charge, even if this had to be on

1064
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:15,759
Speaker 1: foot rather than on horseback as an India, and it

1065
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 1: was Boddine's overawing presents that would make them but the

1066
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:22,280
Speaker 1: Malay's wrong footed James turned things around and refused to attack,

1067
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 1: urging that they dared not risk Bodredine's precious royal life.

1068
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,320
Speaker 1: Bud Redine insisted that if I went, he would likely

1069
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 1: likewise go, and the Malaise insisted that if he went,

1070
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: they would not go. So Boderdine and James retired and

1071
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: directed the artillery from a place of safety. All went

1072
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: well until the surreptitiously advancing assault troops betrayed themselves by

1073
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,000
Speaker 1: making the mistake of praying too loudly, attracting the attention

1074
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 1: of three old muskets in the hands of the defenders,

1075
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 1: at which they prayed still more loudly and swiftly retired

1076
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: at the front. Everyone built more forts, and James looked

1077
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: for more things to charge. So this is I realized, now,

1078
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:57,960
Speaker 1: why why why he likes boats? Because that's like the

1079
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:00,719
Speaker 1: one place his soldiers can't run for him. You know,

1080
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 1: they're on a boat. They can't leave him because it

1081
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 1: sounds like everyone must soldiers must think he's an idiot. Yeah,

1082
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,800
Speaker 1: they they think he's danger endangering their lives because again,

1083
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 1: the only tactic he has his run headlong at the

1084
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: enemy's guns. Um. He's very zapp Brannigan energy here. Uh So,

1085
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:25,880
Speaker 1: eventually the fighting came down to James taking the field

1086
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 1: with his fellow Europeans, all combat veterans charging. Yeah, this

1087
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 1: time he wears shoes and they do charge the enemy

1088
00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: who breaks and runs. Um. And after this, James decided

1089
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:40,720
Speaker 1: continued battle would be tedious. He he called a parlay

1090
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: and he told the rebels that if they quit, he

1091
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,720
Speaker 1: would guarantee them their lives, and he'd stopped the soldiers

1092
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 1: he was with from looting their villages. James had no

1093
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: authority to promise any of this, and in fact, one

1094
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 1: of the other local rulers, a prince named Akoda, had

1095
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: already promised his men that they were about to get

1096
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 1: to loot all of these enemy villages. But James declared

1097
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:01,719
Speaker 1: the formal rebels under his personal protection and insinuated that

1098
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: taking vengeance on them would be crossing the British Empire,

1099
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:07,839
Speaker 1: and so as a result, this little war ends peacefully

1100
00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:10,240
Speaker 1: with a number, but with a tremendous amount of anger

1101
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: on Prince Makoda's part. The Raja, however, was overjoyed to

1102
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: have things over. Finally, he declared James a permanent residence

1103
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 1: of sarah Wak and gave him the right to trade

1104
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 1: within the country. James briefly tried to set up living

1105
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: as a merchant, bringing goods from Singapore to the isolated kingdom,

1106
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 1: but he proved to be as bad as trading as

1107
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: he had you know, as he'd always been. He's never

1108
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: any good at business or making money. So in short order,

1109
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 1: he decided to go back to the only thing he'd

1110
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 1: ever really wanted to do, having adventures while pretending to

1111
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 1: represent the Royal Navy. When he'd left sarah Wak, the

1112
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: Rajah had promised to build him a house as a

1113
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 1: sign of gratitude. Hashim had also promised to have a

1114
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: large shipment of antimony or which was mine in the

1115
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: area for him, like ready for him to go trade

1116
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 1: in Singapore. Um Now. When he landed, though, he found

1117
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 1: out that none of this would be done. There'd been

1118
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: no ore gathered, there had been no house built, and

1119
00:57:56,680 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 1: he was really angry. He was even more furious when

1120
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 1: he learned that, in accordance with ancient custom, the rulers

1121
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:04,880
Speaker 1: in Brunei, which included the Raja's nephew, the Sultan, were

1122
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 1: about to allow a hundred Dyak war canoes to row

1123
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 1: down the river and raid Malay villages on the interior.

1124
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: This was in fact brutal, but it was a crutal

1125
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: crucial source of revenue for the Bruneians who ruled sarah

1126
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 1: wak Um. So basically, you've got the Sultan of Brunei

1127
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: who runs this country, and whenever you have kind of

1128
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:24,680
Speaker 1: like a small group of people running an entire country,

1129
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:27,000
Speaker 1: they're gonna do the same ship the British Empire always did,

1130
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:29,200
Speaker 1: which is play different ethnic groups off of each other.

1131
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: And the way that Bruneians do this is they have

1132
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: an agreement with the Dyaks where they they'll let them

1133
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 1: go and raid and murder and like take slaves and

1134
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 1: and steal from villages in exchange for the day as

1135
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,560
Speaker 1: paying bribes to the rulers in Brunei. And this is

1136
00:58:43,600 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 1: part of how the government perpetuates itself, right, this is

1137
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 1: kind of what they have instead of taxes on the

1138
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 1: day as is, they let them raid and they get

1139
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: some of the money that they get from raiding. And

1140
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: it's also how they stopped the Dyaks from rebelling and

1141
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:58,280
Speaker 1: fighting against them. The safe the regular raiding season was

1142
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 1: seen as kind of like a safety valve for diet aggression.

1143
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:04,360
Speaker 1: And this all made James furious, Like again, he comes

1144
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:06,960
Speaker 1: into this system that has been set up for a while,

1145
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: and as brutal as it is, is the system that

1146
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: things work by in Sarah Wak, and he thinks it's immoral,

1147
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 1: so he demands the whole thing be canceled. So he

1148
00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: was ignored in this. The Rajah was like, this is

1149
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:18,919
Speaker 1: how we do things here. You're just some like white

1150
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: dude who came in. I'm not going to I'm not

1151
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,000
Speaker 1: going to change our entire system of government for you. Um.

1152
00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: And when this happens, James Brooke gets angry and he

1153
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: sails his warship inland and he basically trains his cannons

1154
00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: on the Capitol and threatens the Raja into action. So

1155
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 1: the Rajah is like, well, I don't have any cannons.

1156
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: You have a warship, So I guess I'm going to

1157
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 1: call off the raid. But after his little stunt, James

1158
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,240
Speaker 1: could tell the local leadership was no longer amenable to

1159
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 1: his presence. So he had been like the Rajah had

1160
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: been happy to make him a permanent resident and give

1161
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: him like some official status here after he threatens the

1162
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: Rajah with cannons. This is kind of no longer the case,

1163
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: as you might expect, So James decides that since things

1164
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 1: have become unfriendly, he's going to make some more threats,

1165
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 1: pointing out that he has the power to bring the

1166
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 1: British Navy down on Brunei, which is the capital of

1167
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: the entire region. Now at just this point, purely by coincidence,

1168
01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 1: a company steamship entered the port to trade this served

1169
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: and again, because James isn't a navy vessel, when the

1170
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 1: company's steamship goes in, they have to salute him. So

1171
01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: they do this whole salute and makes it look to

1172
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,280
Speaker 1: the people on the ground like this boat is coming

1173
01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: in to support him, and it makes it seem more

1174
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 1: credible than like, oh shit, he really can bring the

1175
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 1: entire Royal Navy down in our assets. If not fortuitous,

1176
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:31,040
Speaker 1: that has happened at the exact moment. This happens like

1177
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: four times to him the luckiest dumb guy. Yeah. So

1178
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: this obviously serves to make James is boasts more credible

1179
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 1: and knowing a moment when he sees one, James sails

1180
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 1: to Brunei and marches on the on the Sultan's palace

1181
01:00:45,720 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 1: with a company of heavily armed men. So basically, after

1182
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 1: scaring the local rulers in Sarawak, he sails to the

1183
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 1: capital of Brunei and comes ashore with like a hundred

1184
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 1: dudes strapped with rifles. So he comes to the Sultan

1185
01:00:57,720 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: with a bunch of armed mercenaries and a list of

1186
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: green princes bramming blaming Prince Mkota for trying to kill

1187
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: him and trying to capture English soldiers. This was mostly nonsense,

1188
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 1: but it gave James a justification for what he What

1189
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 1: he was about to do next. Makota, James said, was

1190
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 1: a destabilizing influence in the area. The Raja was not

1191
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 1: safe with Prince Mcoda around, and in order to make

1192
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: things safe for the Sultan and Brunei, the Sultan needed

1193
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: to make James Brooke the governor of sarah Wak for life. Otherwise,

1194
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: James couldn't guarantee the Rajah or the sultan safety. So

1195
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:31,439
Speaker 1: and again he's saying that, like, I'm here, I wanted

1196
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 1: you need to do this so I can protect you

1197
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 1: from Prince Mkoda. But he's doing this while pointing a

1198
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:37,800
Speaker 1: bunch of cannons at the Sultan and with a company

1199
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: of armed mercenaries at his back. So this is actually

1200
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: pretty smart of him. This is like one of the

1201
01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:45,000
Speaker 1: smarter things he's done. Yeah, he he figures out how

1202
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:47,160
Speaker 1: to be how to be a white guy in this period.

1203
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 1: So again, and the Sultan at this point is not

1204
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: just staring at a bunch of guns. He's staring down

1205
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:56,919
Speaker 1: a bunch of guns held and controlled by a guy who,

1206
01:01:57,000 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: as far as he knows, speaks with the authority of

1207
01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: the queen of a land. So the Sultan submits. James

1208
01:02:03,560 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: Brooke was made the governor of sarah Wak and in

1209
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 1: his mind he James kind of believed that he was

1210
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:11,360
Speaker 1: doing all this for selfless purposes, or at least that's

1211
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:13,520
Speaker 1: how he portrayed it to other people. I don't know

1212
01:02:13,560 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: if i'd say he believed it, but that's how he

1213
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 1: He kind of writes home about this. Uh. Nigel Barley,

1214
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: his biographer writes, quote, James always considered his actions to

1215
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 1: be genuinely for the benefit of locals, whether the locals

1216
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 1: realized it or not, so that his interests in There's

1217
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: would naturally coalesce. It was a fundamental tenant of his

1218
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:34,200
Speaker 1: rule that the Brooks governed only by consensus, Bruneyan's by

1219
01:02:34,240 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: unprincipled oriental oriental despotism. But this was hardly the free

1220
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 1: entreaty or election by grateful natives that Brooke history would record,

1221
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: so he would kind of he becomes the governor of

1222
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 1: sarah Wak through threatening a guy with guns. But he

1223
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 1: justifies this by saying the Bruneians are dictators right there,

1224
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 1: and they're they're ruling by terror and fear and violence,

1225
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 1: which is true. But he also is kind of ignoring

1226
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 1: the fact that he became the ruler by reatening to

1227
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:06,840
Speaker 1: get gunned down. The existing pretty slick, though I'll give

1228
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:10,360
Speaker 1: him credit for that. It is slick. It is it'll

1229
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: get sick because he's not He's not what he wants

1230
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:14,960
Speaker 1: to be. At this point, he has been made the

1231
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:17,560
Speaker 1: governor of a region of Malaysia for the rest of

1232
01:03:17,600 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 1: his life, and he's been made it through like a

1233
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,320
Speaker 1: handshake agreement. He doesn't have any paper that like signifies this.

1234
01:03:23,560 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 1: He doesn't have his descendants don't have any right to

1235
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: the position. So his next tasks are going to be

1236
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 1: finding out how to turn himself from like governor of

1237
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 1: this island to basically king. So that's the journey we're

1238
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:37,800
Speaker 1: going to cover when we go to part two of

1239
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:42,479
Speaker 1: the James Brooks story. But for right now, it's time

1240
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: for part two of the coma story where you plug

1241
01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 1: your plugables. Oh that was really good again, thank you.

1242
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: I am a professional broadcasting I'm learning a lot um.

1243
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: You can find us at the House of Pod on

1244
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 1: Twitter and you can listen to our podcast pretty much

1245
01:03:57,840 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: in all the same place as you listen to your

1246
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: other podcast called the House of Pod. It's a medical podcast,

1247
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 1: but you know, I think you might enjoy it if

1248
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:07,280
Speaker 1: you're not a doctor. People seem to do that. Uh,

1249
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,520
Speaker 1: it's kind of relatable and if you want to hear

1250
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: how doctors actually talk when they're like, you know, talking

1251
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 1: to each other, uh, in non front of like you know,

1252
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 1: like a lecture hall or something like that. This is

1253
01:04:18,040 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: the show for you. You like it, try it, you

1254
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: don't you know free that was a great pitch. Check

1255
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: out the House of pod Uh and I don't know,

1256
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: check out buying a naval vessel and conquering chunk of Malaysia. Um,

1257
01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:35,280
Speaker 1: keep it a shot, you know it might work out

1258
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 1: for you. Always that probably isn't a good way to

1259
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:42,240
Speaker 1: end this episode. I can almost go the music in

1260
01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 1: the background, which, yep, here we go. Let's let the

1261
01:04:47,840 --> 01:05:03,480
Speaker 1: music uh, distracting the fact that I just endorsed imperialism.