[COMPOSED BY STERN.]
About ten o’clock in the morning there was an unusual bustle on the
principal highway which leads from the district Pandaglang to Lebak.
“Principal highway” is, perhaps, too good a name for a wide footpath,
which people called out of politeness, and from want of a better term,
“the way;” but if you started with a carriage and four from Serang, the
capital of Bantam, [17] with the intention of going to Rankas-Betong,
the new capital of the Lebak district, you would be sure to reach your
destination some time or other. So it was a road. It is true you often
stuck in the mud, which in the Bantam lowlands is so heavy, clayey, and
sticky, that travellers are often obliged to ask the assistance of the
inhabitants of the villages in the neighbourhood—even of those who are
not in the neighbourhood, for villages are not numerous in these
regions;—but if you did succeed at last in getting the assistance of a
score of husbandmen, it did not take long to get horses and carriage
again on firm ground. The coachman smacked his whip, the running
boys—in Europe you would call them, I think, “palfreniers,”—but no, you
have nothing in Europe which can give you an idea of these running
boys.—These incomparable running boys, with their short thin switches,
tearing alongside of the four horses, making indescribable noises, and
beating the horses under the belly to encourage them, till—the
vexatious moment arrived when the carriage once more sank in the mud.
Then the cry for help was renewed; you waited till assistance was
proffered, and then slowly resumed the journey. Often when I passed
that way, I expected to meet a carriage with travellers of the last
century, who had stuck in the mud, and been forgotten. But this never
happened to me. Therefore I suppose, that every one who went that way,
arrived at last at his destination. You would be mistaken, if you
thought that all the roads in Java were in the same bad state. The
military road with many branches, which Marshal Daendels [18]
constructed with great sacrifice of men, is indeed a masterpiece, and
you are struck with wonder at the energy of the man, who,
notwithstanding many obstacles, raised up by envious opponents at home,
dared the displeasure of the population, the discontent of the chiefs,
and succeeded in performing a task, that even now excites and merits
the admiration of every visitor.
No post-horses in Europe, not even in England, Russia, or Hungary can
be compared with those of Java. Over high mountain ridges, along the
brow of precipices that make you shudder, the heavy-laden travelling
carriage flies on at full speed. The coachman sits on the box as if
nailed to it, hours, yes, whole days successively, and swings the heavy
lash with an iron hand. He can calculate exactly where and how much he
must restrain the galloping horses, in order that, after descending at
full speed from a mountain declivity, he may on reaching that corner *
* *
“O God” (cries the inexperienced traveller),——“we are going down a
precipice, there’s no road,——there’s an abyss!” * *
Yes, so it seems. The road bends, and just at the time when one more
bound of the galloping animals would throw the leaders off the path,
the horses turn, and sling the carriage round the corner. At full
gallop they run up the mountain height, which a moment before was
unseen——and the precipice is behind you. Sometimes the carriage is only
supported at the bend by the wheels on the inside of the curve:
centrifugal force has raised the outside ones off the ground. It needs
a great deal of coolness, not to shut one’s eyes, and whoever travels
for the first time in Java, generally writes to his family in Europe,
that he has been in danger of his life; but he whose home is in Java
laughs at that.
Reader, it is not my intention, particularly at the commencement of
this history, to waste time in describing places, scenery, or
buildings.—I am too much afraid of disheartening you, by what would
resemble prolixity; and therefore, until I feel that I have won your
attention, till I observe in your glances and in your countenance that
the destiny of the heroine, who jumps somewhere from a fourth storey,
interests you, I shall not make her hover in the air, with a bold
contempt for all the laws of gravitation, so long as is necessary for
the accurate description of the beauty of the landscape, or the
building, that seems to be put in somewhere to give occasion for a
voluminous essay on mediæval architecture. All those castles resemble
each other. They are invariably of heterogeneous architecture; the main
building always dates from some earlier reign than the wings which are
added to it afterwards under the reign of such and such a king. The
towers are in a dilapidated state. * * * Reader, there are no towers. A
tower is an idea, a dream. There are “half towers,” and turrets. The
fanaticism which wanted to put towers to the edifices that were erected
in honour of this or that saint, did not last long enough to finish
them; and the spire, designed to point out heaven to believers, is
generally supported by two or three low battlements on the huge base,
which makes you think of the man without thighs at the fair. The towers
of village churches only, with their spires, are finished.
It is not very flattering to Western civilisation, that the enthusiasm
for an extensive work has very seldom prevailed long enough to see that
work finished. I do not now speak of undertakings whose completion was
necessary to defray the expenses: whoever wants to know exactly what I
mean, must go and see the Cathedral at Cologne. Let him think of the
grand conception of that building in the soul of the architect;—of the
faith in the hearts of the people, which furnished him with the means
to commence and continue that labour;—of the influence of the ideas,
which required such a colossus to serve as a visible representation of
unseen religious feeling—and let him compare that enthusiasm with the
train of ideas, that some centuries afterwards stopped the labour.
There is a profound chasm between Erwin von Steinbach and our
architects! I know, that for many years they have been occupied in
filling up that chasm; at Cologne too they are again working at the
Cathedral. But will they be able to join the broken wire; will they be
able to find again in our days, what constituted the power of prelate
and builder?—I do not think so. Money may be contributed, stone and
lime may be bought, a draughtsman may be paid to draw a plan, and a
mason to fix the stones——but the lost and still venerable faith, that
saw in an edifice a poem—a poem of granite, that spoke very loudly to
the people—a poem in marble, that stood there as an immovable continual
eternal prayer, cannot be purchased with money. * * * *
There was one morning an unusual bustle on the frontiers between Lebak
and Pandaglang. Hundreds of saddled horses were on the way, and a
thousand men at least, a large number for that place, ran to and fro in
active expectancy. There were the chiefs of the villages, and the
district chiefs of Lebak, all with their followers; and judging from
the beautiful Arab steed, that stood there in his rich caparison, a
chief of great importance must be there also. Such was the case. The
Regent of Lebak, Radeen Adhipatti, Karta Natta Negara, [19] had left
Rankas-Betong with a numerous retinue, and notwithstanding his great
age had travelled the twelve or thirteen miles that separated his
residence from Pandaglang. A new Assistant Resident was coming; and
custom, which has the force of law in the Indies more than anywhere
else, will have it that the officer who is intrusted with the rule of a
district must be festively received on his arrival. The Controller,
too, was present. He was a man of middle age, and after the death of
the last Assistant Resident, being the next in rank, had carried on the
government for some months.
As soon as the arrival of the new Assistant Resident was known, a
pendoppo was erected in great haste; a table and some chairs brought
there with some refreshments, and in that ‘pendoppo’ the Regent, with
the Controller, awaited the arrival of the new chief. After a
broad-brimmed hat, an umbrella, or a hollow tree, a ‘pendoppo’ is
certainly the most simple representation of the idea “roof.”
Picture to yourself four or six bamboo canes, driven into the ground,
tied together at the top with other bamboos, on which is placed a cover
of the large leaves of the water-palm, called in these regions atap,
and you will have an idea of such a ‘pendoppo.’ It is, as you see, as
simple as possible, and here it had only to serve as a pied-à-terre,
for the European and native officials who were there to welcome their
new chief.
It was not very correct of me to call the Assistant Resident the
“chief” of the Regent. I must explain the machinery of government in
these regions. The so-called “Dutch India”—[I think the expression
inaccurate, but it is the official term]—as far as regards the relation
of its population to the mother country, must be divided into two very
distinct great divisions.
One of these consists of tribes whose kings and princes have been
content to be tributary to Holland, but have nevertheless retained the
direct government, in a greater or less degree, in their own hands. The
other division, to which the whole of Java belongs, with a very
trifling, perhaps only apparent exception, is totally and directly
subject to Holland. There is here no question about tribute, tax, or
alliance. The Javanese is a Dutch subject. The King of Holland is his
king. The descendants of his former princes and lords are Dutch
functionaries: they are appointed, transferred, promoted, dismissed, by
the Governor-General, who reigns in name of the King. Criminals are
condemned and punished by a law made at the Hague. The taxes paid by
the Javanese flow into the Exchequer of Holland.
This book will treat chiefly of these Dutch possessions, which form an
integral part of the kingdom of Holland. The Governor-General is
assisted by a Senate, but this Senate has no power to modify his
resolutions. At Batavia, the different branches of the Government are
divided into departments, with Directors at their head, who form the
link between the supreme direction of the Governor-General and the
Residents in the provinces. Yet in matters of a political nature these
Residents apply directly to the Governor-General.
The title of “Resident” dates its origin from the time when Holland
acted the part of a protecting State rather than that of a feudal
superior, and was represented at the Courts of the several reigning
princes by resident functionaries. The Princes are gone; the Residents
have become rulers of provinces; they have acquired the power of
prefects. Their position is changed, but the name remains.
It is properly those Residents who represent the Dutch authority in the
eyes of the Javanese population, who know neither the Governor-General,
nor the Senators of the Indies, nor the Directors at Batavia; they know
only the Resident and the functionaries who reign subordinate to him.
A Residency, so called—some of them have a population of one million
souls,—is divided into three, four, or five departments or regencies,
at the head of each of which is an Assistant Resident. Under these the
government is carried on by controllers, overseers, and a number of
other officers, who are required for the gathering of the taxes, the
superintendence of agriculture, the erection of buildings, for the
waterworks, the police, and the administration of justice.
In every department the Assistant Resident is aided by a native chief
of high rank, with the title of Regent. Such a Regent, though his
relation to the Government and his department is quite that of a paid
official, always belongs to the high aristocracy of his country, and
often to the family of the princes, who have governed in that part or
neighbourhood as independent sovereigns. It is very politic in Holland
to make use of the ancient feudal influence of the princes, which in
Asia is generally very great, and is looked upon by most of the tribes
as a part of their religion, because, by making those chiefs paid
officers of the Crown, a sort of hierarchy is created, at the head of
which is the Dutch Government, in the person of the Governor-General.
There is nothing new under the sun. Were not the Margraves, the
Burgraves, of the German Empire, appointed in the same manner by the
Emperor, and generally elected from among the Barons? Without
expatiating on the origin of the nobility, which is sufficiently
evident, I wish here to insert the observation, that throughout the
Indies the same causes have had the same effects as in Europe. If a
country must be ruled at a great distance, you will need functionaries
to represent the central power. Thus the Romans under their system of
military despotism chose prefects from among the generals of the
legions who had subjugated a country. Such districts thenceforth
remained “provinces,” and were ruled as conquests! But when afterwards
the central power of the German Empire endeavoured to hold the people
in subjection by other means than by material force, as soon as a
distant region was considered to belong to the Empire from similarity
of origin, language, and customs, it became necessary to charge with
the management of affairs a person who not only was at home in that
country, but was elevated by his rank above his fellow-citizens, in
order that obedience to the commands of the Emperor might be rendered
more easy by the military submission of the people to him who was
intrusted with the execution of those commands; and in this manner the
cost of a standing army was altogether or in part avoided at the
expense of the public treasury, or, as it generally happened, of the
provinces themselves, who had to be watched by an army. So the first
Counts were chosen out of the Barons of the country, and if you take
the word literally, then “Count” is no noble title, but only the
denomination of a person invested with a certain office. I, therefore,
also think, that in the middle ages the opinion prevailed, that the
German Emperor had the right to appoint “Counts” (governors of
districts), and “Dukes” (commanders of armies), but that the Barons
asserted that they were, as regards their birth, equal to the Emperor,
and were only dependent upon God, except as regarded their obligation
to serve the Emperor, provided he was elected with their approbation
and from among their number. A Count was invested with an office to
which the Emperor had called him; a Baron considered himself a Baron
“by the grace of God.” The Counts represented the Emperor, and as such
carried his banners; a Baron raised men under his colours as a knight.
The circumstance that Counts and Dukes were generally elected from
among the Barons, caused them to add the importance of their employment
to the influence which they derived from their birth; and it seems that
afterwards, especially when people got accustomed to the hereditary
nature of those employments, the precedence arose which these titles
had over that of Baron. Even now-a-days, many a noble family, without
imperial or royal patent, that is to say, such a family as derives its
nobility from the origin of the country itself, a family which always
was noble, because it was noble—autochthonous—would refuse an elevation
to the title of Count. There are instances of this.
The persons intrusted with the government of such a county naturally
tried to obtain from the Emperor, that their sons, or, in default of
sons, other relations, should succeed them in their employment. This
also happened very often, though I do not believe that the right to
that succession was ever proved, at least in the case of those
functionaries in the Netherlands, the Counts of Holland, Zealand,
Flanders, Hainault,—the Dukes of Brabant, Gelderland, etc. At first it
was a favour, soon it became a custom, at last a necessity; but never
did that succession become a law.
Almost in the same way, as to the choice of persons,—because there can
be no question of similarity of position,—a native functionary is
placed at the head of a district of Java, who adds to the rank given
him by the Government his autochthonous influence, to facilitate the
rule of the European functionary representing the Dutch Government.
Here, too, hereditary succession, without being established by law, has
become a custom. During the life of the Regent this is often arranged;
and it is regarded as a reward for zeal and trust, if they give him the
promise that he shall be succeeded by his son. There must be very
important reasons to cause a departure from that rule, and where this
is necessary, a successor is generally elected out of the members of
the same family. The relation between European officials and such
high-placed Javanese nobles is very delicate. The Assistant Resident of
a district is the responsible person; he has his instructions, and is
considered to be the chief of the district. Still the Regent is much
his superior—through local knowledge, birth, influence on the
population, pecuniary revenues, and manner of living. Moreover, a
Regent, as representing the Javanese element, and being considered the
mouthpiece of the hundred thousand or more inhabitants of his regency,
is also in the eyes of the Government a much more important personage
than the simple European officer, whose discontent need not be feared,
because they can get many others in his place, whilst the displeasure
of a Regent would become perhaps the germ of disturbance or revolt.
From all this arises the strange reality that the inferior actually
commands the superior. The Assistant Resident orders the Regent to make
statements to him; he orders him to send labourers to work at the
bridges and roads; he orders him to gather the taxes; he summons him to
the Council, of which he, the Assistant Resident, is President; he
blames him where he is guilty of neglect of duty. This peculiar
relation is made possible only by very polite forms, which need not
exclude either cordiality, or where it is necessary, severity; and I
believe that the demeanour to be maintained in this relation is very
well described in the official instructions on the subject, as follows,
“The European functionary has to treat the native functionary, who aids
him, as his younger brother.” But he must not forget that this younger
brother is very much loved, or feared, by his parents, and in the event
of any dispute, his own seniority would immediately be accounted as a
motive for taking it amiss that he did not treat his younger brother
with more indulgence.
The innate courteousness of the Javanese grandee,—even the common
Javanese are much politer than Europeans in the same condition,—makes
this apparently difficult relation more tolerable than it otherwise
would be.
Let the European have a good education, with some refinement, let him
behave himself with a friendly dignity, and he may be assured that the
Regent on his part will do all in his power to facilitate his rule. The
distasteful command put in an inviting form is punctually performed.
The difference in position, birth, wealth, is effaced by the Regent
himself, who raises the European, as Representative of the King of the
Netherlands, to his own position; and the result of a relation which,
viewed superciliously, would have brought about collision, is very
often the source of an agreeable intercourse.
I said that such Regents had precedence over the European functionaries
on account of their wealth; and this is a matter of course. The
European, when he is summoned to govern a province which in surface is
equal to many German duchies, is generally a person of middle or more
advanced age, married and a father: he fills an office to gain his
livelihood. His pay is only sufficient, and often insufficient, to
procure what is necessary for his family. The Regent is “Tommongong,”
“Adhipatti,” [20] yes, even “Pangerang,” that is, a “Javanese prince.”
The question for him is not that of getting his living; he must live
according to his rank.
While the European lives in a house, his residence is often a Kratoon,
[21] with many houses and villages therein. Where the European has a
wife with three or four children, he supports a great number of women
with their attendants. While the European rides out, followed by a few
officers—as many as are necessary to draw up reports on his journey of
inspection,—the Regent is followed by hundreds of retainers that belong
to his suite, and in the eyes of the people these are inseparable from
his high rank. The European lives citizen-like; the Regent lives—or is
supposed to live—as a Prince.
But all this must be paid for. The Dutch Government which has founded
itself on the influence of these Regents, knows this; and therefore
nothing is more natural than that it has raised their incomes to a
standard that must appear exaggerated to one unacquainted with Indian
affairs, but which is in truth very seldom sufficient to meet the
expenses that are necessarily incurred by the mode of life of such a
native chief.
It is no uncommon thing to find Regents in pecuniary difficulties who
have an income of two or three hundred thousand guilders. [22] This is
brought about by the princely indifference with which they lavish their
money, and neglect to watch their inferiors, by their fondness for
buying, and, above all things, the abuse often made of these qualities
by Europeans. The revenue of the Javanese grandees may be divided into
four parts. In the first place, their fixed monthly pay; secondly, a
fixed sum as indemnification for their bought-up rights, which have
passed to the Dutch Government; thirdly, a premium on the productions
of their regency,—as coffee, sugar, indigo, cinnamon, etc.; and lastly,
the arbitrary disposal of the labour and property of their subjects.
The two last-mentioned sources of revenue need some explanation. The
Javanese is by nature a husbandman; the ground whereon he is born,
which gives much for little labour, allures him to it, and, above all
things, he devotes his whole heart and soul to the cultivating of his
rice-fields, in which he is very clever. He grows up in the midst of
his sawahs, and gagahs, and tipars; [23] when still very young, he
accompanies his father to the field, where he helps him in his labour
with plough and spade, in constructing dams and drains to irrigate his
fields; he counts his years by harvests; he estimates time by the
colour of the blades in his field; he is at home amongst the companions
who cut paddy with him; he chooses his wife amongst the girls of the
dessah, [24] who every evening tread the rice with joyous songs. The
possession of a few buffaloes for ploughing is the ideal of his dreams.
The cultivation of rice is in Java what the vintage is in the Rhine
provinces and in the south of France. But there came foreigners from
the West, who made themselves masters of the country. They wished to
profit by the fertility of the soil, and ordered the native to devote a
part of his time and labour to the cultivation of other things which
should produce higher profits in the markets of Europe. To persuade the
lower orders to do so, they only had to follow a very simple policy.
The Javanese obeys his chiefs; to win the chiefs, it was only necessary
to give them a part of the gain,—and success was complete.
To be convinced of the success of that policy we need only consider the
immense quantity of Javanese products sold in Holland; and we shall
also be convinced of its injustice, for, if anybody should ask if the
husbandman himself gets a reward in proportion to that quantity, then I
must give a negative answer. The Government compels him to cultivate
certain products on his ground; it punishes him if he sells what he has
produced to any purchaser but itself; and it fixes the price actually
paid. The expenses of transport to Europe through a privileged trading
company are high; the money paid to the chiefs for encouragement
increases the prime cost; and because the entire trade must produce
profit, that profit cannot be got in any other way than by paying the
Javanese just enough to keep him from starving, which would lessen the
producing power of the nation.
To the European officials, also, a premium is paid in proportion to the
produce. It is a fact that the poor Javanese is thus driven by a double
force; that he is driven away from his rice-fields; it is a fact that
famine is often the consequence of these measures; but the flags of the
ships, laden with the harvest that makes Holland rich, are flapping
gaily at Batavia, at Samarang, at Soorabaya, at Passarooan, at
Bezookie, at Probolingo, at Patjitan, at Tjilatjap.
“Famine——? In Java, the rich and fertile, famine?”—Yes, reader, a few
years ago whole districts were depopulated by famine; mothers offered
to sell their children for food, mothers ate their own children.——But
then the mother-country interfered. In the halls of the Dutch
Parliament complaints were made, and the then reigning Governor had to
give orders that the extension of the so-called European market should
no longer be pushed to the extremity of famine.
“Oh! this angelic Parliament!——”
This I write with bitterness—what would you think of a person that
could describe such things without bitterness?
I have yet to speak of the last and principal source of the revenues of
the native chiefs, viz., their arbitrary disposal of the persons and
property of their subjects. According to the general idea in nearly the
whole of Asia, the subject, with all that he possesses, belongs to the
prince. The descendants or relatives of the former princes like to
profit by the ignorance of the people, who do not yet quite understand
that their “Tommongong,” “Adhipatti,” or “Pangerang” is now a paid
official, who has sold his own rights and theirs for a fixed income,
and that thus the ill-requited labour of the coffee plantation or sugar
field has taken the place of the taxes which they formerly paid their
lords. Hence nothing is more common than that hundreds of families are
summoned from far remote places to work, without payment, on fields
that belong to the Regent. Nothing is more common than the furnishing
of unpaid-for provisions for the use of the Court of the Regent; and if
the Regent happens to cast a longing eye on the horse, the buffalo, the
daughter, the wife of the poor man, it would be thought unheard-of if
he refused the unconditional surrender of the desired object. There are
Regents who make a reasonable use of such arbitrary powers, and who do
not exact more of the poor man than is strictly necessary to uphold
their rank. Some go a little further, and this injustice is nowhere
entirely wanting. And it is very difficult, nay even impossible,
entirely to destroy such an abuse, because it is in the nature of the
population itself to induce or create it. The Javanese is cordial,
above all things where he has to give a proof of attachment to his
chief, to the descendant of those whom his forefathers obeyed. He would
even think himself wanting in the respect due to his hereditary lord,
if he entered his Kratoon without presents. These gifts are often of
such small value, that to refuse them would be a humiliation, and the
usage is rather more like the homage of a child who tries to give
utterance to filial love by offering his father a little present, than
a tribute to tyrannical despotism.
But the existence of such a good custom makes the abolition of a bad
one very difficult.
If the aloon-aloon [25] in front of the residence of the Regent were in
an uncultivated condition, the neighbouring population would be ashamed
of it, and much force would be required to prevent them from clearing
that square of weeds, and putting it in a condition suitable to the
rank of the Regent. To give any payment for this would be considered as
an insult to all. But near this ‘aloon-aloon,’ or elsewhere, there are
‘sawahs’ that wait for the plough, or a channel to bring water, often
from a distance of many miles. Those ‘sawahs’ belong to the Regent. He
summons the population of whole villages, whose ‘sawahs’ need labour as
well as his.——There you have the abuse.
This is known to the Government; and whosoever reads the official
papers, containing the laws, instructions, regulations, etc., for the
functionaries, applauds the humanity and justice which seem to have
influenced those who made them. Wherever the European is intrusted with
power in the interior of Java, he is clearly told that one of his first
obligations is to prevent the self-abasement of the people, and to
protect them from the covetousness of the chiefs; and, as if it were
not enough to make this obligation generally known, a special oath is
exacted from the Assistant Residents that when they enter upon the
government of a province, they will regard this fatherly care for the
population as their first duty.
That is a noble vocation. To maintain justice, to protect the poor
against the powerful, to defend the weak against the superior power of
the strong, to recover the ewe-lamb from the folds of the kingly
robber:—well, all this makes your heart glow with pleasure at the idea
that it is your lot to have so noble a vocation;—and let any one in the
interior of Java, who may be sometimes discontented with his situation
or pay, consider the sublime duty which devolves upon him, and the
glorious delight which the fulfilment of such a duty gives, and he will
not be desirous of any other reward. But that duty is by no means easy.
In the first place, one has exactly to consider where the use ends, to
make room for abuse;—and where the abuse exists, where robbery has
indeed been committed by the exercise of arbitrary power, the victims
themselves are, for the most part, accomplices, either from extreme
submission, or from fear, or from distrust of the will or the power of
the man whose duty it is to protect them. Every one knows, that the
European officer can be summoned every moment to another employment,
and that the Regent, the powerful Regent, remains there. Moreover,
there are so many ways of appropriating the property of a poor ignorant
man. If a mantrie [26] says to him that the Regent wants his horse, the
consequence is, that the wished-for animal is soon found in the
Regent’s stables; but this does not mean that the Regent does not
intend to pay handsomely for it some time or other. If hundreds of
people labour on the fields of a chief, without getting money for it,
this is no proof that he makes them do so for his benefit. Might it not
have been his intention to give them the harvest, having made the
philanthropic calculation that his fields were more fertile than
theirs, and would much better reward their labour?
Besides, where could the European officer get witnesses having the
courage to give evidence against their lord the Regent? And, if he
ventured to make an accusation without being able to prove it, where
would be the relation of elder brother, who, in such a case, would have
impeached his younger brother’s honour? Where would he then find the
favour of the Government, which gives him bread for service, but which
would take that bread from him, which would discharge him as incapable,
if he rashly accused so high a personage as an “Adhipatti” or
“Pangerang?”
No, no, that duty is by no means easy! This can be proved by the
fact—apparent to every one—that each native chief pushes too far the
limit of the lawful disposal of labour and property; that all Assistant
Residents take an oath to resist this, and yet that very seldom a
Regent is accused for abuse of power or arbitrary conduct.
It seems also that there must be an insurmountable difficulty in
keeping the oath: “TO PROTECT THE NATIVE POPULATION AGAINST EXTORTION
AND TYRANNY.”