country. It is not my intention to publish in this book communications such as would be suitable for a tribunal that had to decide on the manner in which the Dutch power is exercised in India,communications that would have the power to convince him only who had patience enough to read them all, which cannot be expected of the public that looks for recreation in its reading. Therefore instead of barren names of persons and places with the dates, instead of a copy of the list of thefts and extortions which lies before me, I have tried to give a sketch of what can take place in the hearts of the poor people who are robbed of their means of subsistence; or even, I have only made you guess this, as I feared, to be mistaken in painting emotions which I never experienced.
But as regards the main point. . . O that I were summoned to prove what I wrote! O that it were said, “You invented that Saïdjah: he never sang that lay; there never lived an Adinda in Badoer!” O that it were said with the power and the will to do justice as soon as I have proved myself to have been no slanderer!
Is there untruth in the parable of the Good Samaritan, because perhaps a plundered traveller was never taken to the Samaritan’s house? Is there untruth in the parable of the Sower, because it is clear that no husbandman will throw his seed on a rock? or, to descend to more conformity with my book, can the main thingtruthbe
