Note 1 — Front matter

Max Havelaar was published a few years ago, and caused such a sensation in Holland as was never before experienced in that country. The author wrote it under the pseudonym of Multatuli, but his real name, Eduard Douwes Dekker, formerly Assistant Resident of the Dutch Government in Java, at once became known. Full of fire, and overflowing with enthusiasm, the author presented it to his countrymen in the form of a novel, —a book wherein he made them acquainted with the incredible extortions and tyranny of which the natives of the Dutch Indies, “that magnificent empire of Insulind, which winds about the equator like a garland of emeralds,” are the victims, and how he tried in vain, while still in the service of the Government, to put an end to the cruel oppressions that happen every day in those countries. Though some considered his book to be merely an interesting and captivating novel, the author maintained that it contained nothing but facts. He boldly asked the Dutch Government to prove the substance of his book to be false, but its truth has never been disputed. At the International Congress for the promotion of Social Sciences at Amsterdam, in 1863, he challenged his countrymen to refute him, but there was no champion to accept the challenge. In short, Mr. Douwes Dekker, who had been a functionary in the service of the Dutch Government for the space of seventeen years, rather understated than overstated the truth. Not a single fact was ever contested in Holland, and he is still ready to prove his statements.1 In the Dutch Parliament nobody answered a single word, but Mr. Van Twist, ex-Governor-General of the Dutch Indies, who, on being appealed to by the Baron Van Hoevell, said that he could perhaps refute Max Havelaar, but that it was not his interest to do so.