Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/206

 cers, the Officer of Justice, whom he had brought with him from Padang, and I. This Council was to inquire into the manner in which my predecessor had conducted the action against Si Pamaga. I had to call a number of witnesses whose declarations were necessary for the purpose. The General, who of course presided, carried on the whole examination, and the depositions were written down by the Officer of Justice. As, however, this official understood little Malay, and none of the Malay dialects spoken in the north of Sumatra, it was often necessary to interpret the answers of the witnesses to him, which was mostly done by the General himself. The sessions of this Council produced documents which to prove clearly: that Si Pamaga had never had the intention of murdering anyone whomsoever; that he had never seen or known Sootan Adam or Yang di Pertooan; that he had  rushed at the Tooankoo of Natal; that the latter had  fled through the window  and so on! Further: that the sentence against the unfortunate Si Pamaga had been passed under pressure of the President (my predecessor) and the Councillor Sootan Salim, who had jointly invented the presumed crime of Si Pamaga in order to give the suspended Assistant of Mandhéling a weapon of defence, and also to vent their hatred of Yang di Pertooan.

“Now the manner in which on this occasion the General asked questions reminded one of the game of whist played by a certain Emperor of Morocco, who said to his partner: ‘Play hearts or I’ll cut your throat!’ And also the translations, as he dictated them to the Officer of Justice, left much to be desired.

“Whether Sootan Salim and my predecessor exercised pressure on the Natal Council of Justice, in order to declare Si Pamaga guilty, is unknown to me. But not unknown to me is the fact that General Vandamme exercised pressure in the case of the declarations made to prove the man’s innocence. Without at that time understanding the intention of it, I frankly objected to this inaccuracy, which went so far that I felt it my duty to refuse to add my signature to some of the depositions, and there you have at last the