Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/316



“Ex. Co.

“Buitenzorg, 23rd March, 1856.

“No. 54

“The manner in which you have proceeded since the discovery or supposition of malpractices on the part of the Chiefs of the Division of Lebak, and the attitude taken up by you on that occasion towards your superior officer, the Resident of Bantam, have incurred my greatest dissatisfaction.

“In your actions, above referred to, there has been an absence equally of moderate deliberation, tact, and prudence, which are so urgently requisite in an officer clothed [sic] with the execution of authority in the interior, as of a proper conception of subordination to your immediate superior.

“It was only a few days after you had entered upon your new duties that you found good, without previous consultation of [sic] the Resident, to make the Chief of the Native Government of Lebak an object of incriminating inquiries.

“In those inquires you found cause without even substantiating your charges against that Chief by facts, and far less by proofs, to recommend measures which tended to subject a Native Officer of the stamp of the Regent of Lebak, a sixty-year-old but still zealous servant of his Country, related to neighbouring important Regent-families, and about whom there have always been received favourable reports, to a treatment which would have entirely ruined him from a moral point of view.

“Moreover, when the Resident showed himself indisposed to give immediate effect to your proposals, you refused to comply with the reasonable demand of your Chief to make a complete disclosure of the things that were known to you relative to the actions of the Native administration at Lebak.

“Such actions deserve complete disapprobation, and would readily give cause to suspect for the occupation of a position with the Internal Administration.