Note 16 — Chapter XII · Otis and the War (Continued)
Reading edition
One of the sultans, or head-men, was believed in 1899, to have tried on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca made before we took the Philippines, by some dickering at Singapore or near there in the Straits Settlements, to sell out for a consideration to Great Britain, so as to be under the protection and in the pay of British North Borneo.