Hoofdstuk 14

You know, Havelaar began, how the Dutch possessions on the west coast of Sumatra border on the independent realms in the northern corner, of which Atjeh is the most considerable.

It is said that a secret article in the treaty of 1824 binds us, with respect to the English, not to cross the river of Singkel.

General Vandamme, who with a faux-air of Napoleon was fond of extending his governorship as far as possible, thus ran up against an insurmountable obstacle in that direction.

I am inclined to believe in the existence of that secret article, for otherwise it would surprise me that the Rajahs of Troeman and Analaboe, whose provinces are of no small weight on account of the pepper trade carried on there, had not long since been brought under Dutch sovereignty.

You know how easily one finds a pretext for making war on such little lands and seizing them for oneself.

Stealing a region will always remain easier than stealing a windmill.

I believe of General Vandamme that he would have made off with a windmill itself had he taken a fancy to it, and so I cannot suppose that he would have spared those northern regions had there not been firmer grounds for it than justice and equity.

However that may be, he turned his conqueror's gaze not northward but eastward.

The territories of Mandhéling and Ankola — this was the name of the assistant-residency formed out of the newly pacified Battah lands — were indeed not yet cleansed of Atjinese influence, for wherever fanaticism once takes root it is hard to dig out, but the Atjinese themselves were no longer there. This, however, was not enough for the Governor.

He extended his authority all the way to the east coast, and Dutch officials and Dutch garrisons were sent to Bila and Pertibie, posts which — as you know, Verbrugge — were later evacuated again. When a Government Commissioner arrived on Sumatra who found this expansion pointless and disapproved of it on that account, chiefly too because it conflicted with the desperate economy on which the motherland so strongly insisted, General Vandamme maintained that the expansion need have no burdensome effect on the budget, for the new garrisons had been formed out of troops for which funds had already in any case been granted, so that he had brought a very large region under Dutch administration without any monetary outlay flowing from it.

And as for the partial stripping of other places, chiefly in the Mandhéling country, he thought he could rely sufficiently on the loyalty and devotion of Jang di Pertoean, the foremost chief in the Battah lands, to see no difficulty in it.

With reluctance the Government Commissioner gave way, and only on the general's repeated assurances that he stood surety personally for Jang di Pertoean's loyalty.

Now the controller who governed the Natal division before me was the son-in-law of the assistant-resident in the Battah lands, an official who was on bad terms with Jang di Pertoean.

Later I heard much talk of complaints that had been brought against that assistant-resident, yet one had to be cautious in giving credence to these accusations, since they came largely from the mouth of Jang di Pertoean, and at a moment, moreover, when he himself stood accused of far graver offenses, which perhaps prompted him to seek his own defense in the faults of his accuser ... as happens often enough.

However that may be, the chief officer of Natal embraced the cause of his father-in-law against Jang di Pertoean, and the more ardently perhaps because that controller was on very friendly terms with a certain Soetan Salim, a Natal chief who was likewise much incensed against the Battah chief.

A feud had long reigned between the families of these two chiefs. Marriage proposals had been refused, there was jealousy over influence, pride on the part of Jang di Pertoean, who was of better birth, and still other causes ran together to keep Natal and Mandhéling set against each other.

All at once the rumor spread that a plot had been uncovered in Mandhéling, in which Jang di Pertoean was supposedly implicated, and which aimed at raising the holy banner of revolt and murdering all the Europeans.

The first discovery of this had taken place at Natal, which is natural, since in neighboring provinces one is always better informed of the state of affairs than on the spot itself, because many who at home are held back by fear of an implicated chief from disclosing some circumstance known to them, master that fear to some degree the moment they find themselves on a territory where that chief has no influence.

This, then, is also the reason, Verbrugge, why I am no stranger to the affairs of Lebak, and why I knew a fair amount of what goes on here before I ever thought I would be posted here.

In 1846 I was in the Krawang country, and I roamed widely through the Preanger, where as early as 1840 I had met émigrés from Lebak.

I am also acquainted with some of the owners of private estates in the Buitenzorg country and in the lands around Batavia, and I know how those landlords have from of old rejoiced over the wretched condition of this division, because it peoples their estates.

So too, then, the conspiracy was said to have been uncovered at Natal which — if it ever existed, which I do not know — exposed Jang di Pertoean as a traitor.

According to depositions of witnesses taken down by the controller of Natal, he was said, together with his brother Soetan Adam, to have gathered the Battah chiefs in a sacred grove, where they were supposed to have sworn not to rest until the authority of the "Christian dogs" in Mandhéling was destroyed.

It goes without saying that for this he had received an inspiration from heaven. You know that on such occasions this is never lacking.

Whether this design ever in fact existed in Jang di Pertoean's mind, I cannot affirm. I have read the witnesses' depositions, but you will see at once why no unconditional credence may be placed in them.

Certain it is that the man, so far as his Islamic fanaticism is concerned, may well have been capable of such a thing.

He had, along with the whole Battah population, only shortly before been won over to the true faith by the Padris, and the newly converted are usually fanatical.

The consequence of that true or supposed discovery was that Jang di Pertoean was taken prisoner by the assistant-resident of Mandhéling and sent to Natal. Here the controller shut him up provisionally in the fort, and had him conveyed in custody to Padang by the first suitable opportunity by sea.

It goes without saying that all the documents in which the so incriminating testimonies were recorded, and which had to justify the severity of the measures taken, were laid before the Governor. Our Jang di Pertoean thus departed from Mandhéling as a prisoner.

At Natal he was a prisoner. Aboard the man-of-war that carried him over, he was naturally a prisoner as well.

He therefore expected — guilty or not, that has nothing to do with the matter, since he had in lawful form and by a competent authority been accused of high treason — to arrive at Padang as a prisoner too.

He must indeed have stood greatly astonished, on disembarking, to learn not only that he was free, but that the general, whose carriage awaited him as he stepped ashore, would count it an honor to receive and lodge him in his own house. Surely no man accused of high treason was ever more agreeably surprised.

Shortly after this the assistant-resident of Mandhéling was suspended from his post on account of all manner of offenses which I do not here judge. Jang di Pertoean, however, after lodging some time at Padang in the general's house, and after being treated by him with the utmost distinction, returned by way of Natal to Mandhéling, not with the self-assurance of a man declared innocent, but with the pride of one who stands so high that he needs no declaration of innocence.