Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/304

 I hold that I am responsible for the contentions I advanced only in so far as it may please you to agree to my proposal concerning the  of the inquiry, i.e.: impartial, open, and above all,.

“This free character does exist until the Regent shall have been removed, and in my modest opinion there is nothing dangerous in his removal. Can he not be told that it is who charge and suspect, that it is, and not , who incur risk if he is proved innocent? For I myself am of the opinion that, if it should be shown that I have acted rashly, or only precipitately even, I ought to be dismissed from the service.

“Precipitate! After, of abuse!

“Precipitate! As though an honest man would be able to sleep, to live, to enjoy, as long as they over whose well-being he is called to watch, they who in the highest sense are his, are continually robbed and exploited!

“It is true, I have only been here a short time, but I trust that some day the question will be one has done, and whether one has done it, not whether one has done it in.

“To me every period of time is too long when it is marked by extortion and oppression, and to me every second would weigh heavy which, owing to neglect, to  dereliction of duty, to  spirit of compromise, would have been spent in misery by others.

“I even now regret the days I have allowed to pass without reporting officially, and I ask to be pardoned for that neglect.

“I take the liberty to request that I may be given the opportunity of justifying this letter, and protected against the failure of my efforts to free the division of Lebak from the worms that since the memory of man have gnawed at its welfare.

“It is for this reason that I again presume to ask you kindly to approve my actions in this matter—which, to be sure, have only consisted in, and —that you will remove the Regent of Lebak from here without previous  or