The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 18

Sir, – We are requested to lay the enclosed appeal before you, and to express the desire of the signatories to meet your views as to the manner of the answer.

Should you prefer to reply by word of mouth, a deputation will be ready to wait upon you on Thursday, at any hour you may please to appoint.

Should you prefer to reply in writing, we are asked only to impress upon you the extreme desire of the signatories that no time should be unnecessarily lost.

Should you condescend in either of the ways suggested to set at rest our anxiety, we need scarce assure you that the step will be received with gratitude. – We have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servants,

    Robert Louis Stevenson.
    E. W. Gurr.

II

(Enclosed in No. I.)

The attention of the President of the Municipal Council is respectfully directed to the following rumours: —

1. That at his suggestion, or with his authority, dynamite was purchased, or efforts were made to procure dynamite, and the use of an electrical machine was secured, or attempted to be obtained.

2. That this was for the purpose of undermining, or pretending to undermine, the gaol in which the Manono prisoners were confined.

3. That notification of this design was sent to the friends of the prisoners.

4. That a threat of blowing up the gaol and the prisoners, in the event of an attempted rescue, was made.

Upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information.

It is suggested for the President’s consideration that rumours unconnected or unexplained acquire almost the force of admitted truth.

That any want of confidence between the governed and the Government must be fruitful in loss to both.

That the rumours in their present form tend to damage the white races in the native mind, and to influence for the worse the manners of the Samoans.

And that the President alone is in a position to deny, to explain, or to correct these rumours.

Upon these grounds the undersigned ask to be excused for any informality in their address, and they hope and humbly pray that the President will accept the occasion here presented, and take early and effectual means to inform and reassure the whites, and to relieve them from possible misjudgment on the part of the Samoans.

    Robert Louis Stevenson.
    E.W. Gurr.
    [and nine other signatures.]

III

    Apia, Sept. 30, 1891.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Esq., E.W. Gurr, Esq.

Dear Sirs, – Thanking you for your kind letter dated 28th inst., which I received yesterday, together with the address in question, I beg to inform you that I am going to answer the address in writing as soon as possible. – I have the honour to be, dear Sirs, your obedient servant,

    Senfft.

IV

    Apia, Oct. 2, 1891.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Esq., E. W. Gurr, Esq.

Gentlemen, – I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of an address without date which has been signed by you and some other foreign residents and handed to me on the 29th of September.

In this address my attention is directed to some rumours, specified therein, concerning which I am informed that “upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information.”

Generally, I beg to state that, with a view of successfully performing my official duties, I believe it is advisable for me to pay no attention to any anonymous rumour.

Further, I cannot forbear expressing my astonishment that in speaking to me so seriously in the name of “the white residents” the subscribers of the address have deemed it unnecessary to acquaint me with their authorisation for doing so. This omission is by no means a mere informality. There are white residents who in my presence have commented upon the rumours in question in a manner directly opposed to the meaning of the address.

This fact alone will justify me in objecting to the truth of the above-quoted statement so prominently set forth and so positively affirmed in the address. It will also justify me in abstaining from a reply to the further assertions of gentlemen who, in apostrophising me, care so little for the correctness of the facts they deal with.

If, in consequence, according to the apprehensions laid down in the address, those unexplained rumours will “damage the white races in the native mind,” I think the signing parties will then remember that there are public authorities in Samoa officially and especially charged with the protection of “the white residents.” If they present to them their complaints and their wishes I have no doubt by so doing they will get all information they may require.

I ask you, gentlemen, to communicate this answer to the parties having signed the address in question. – I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient servant,

    Frhr. Senfft von Pilsach.

V

    Oct. 9, 1891.

The signatories of the address are in receipt of the President’s favour under date October 2. Much of his answer is occupied in dealing with a point foreign to the matter in hand, and in itself surprising to the signatories. Their address was an appeal for information on specific points and an appeal from specific persons, who correctly described themselves as “white residents,” “the undersigned,” and in the accompanying letter as the “signatories.” They were so far from seeking to collect evidence in private that they applied frankly and directly to the person accused for explanation; and so far from seeking to multiply signatures or promote scandal that they kept the paper strictly to themselves. They see with regret that the President has failed to appreciate this delicacy. They see with sorrow and surprise that, in answer to a communication which they believe to have been temperately and courteously worded, the President has thought fit to make an imputation on their honesty. The trick of which he would seem to accuse them would have been useless, and even silly, if attempted; and on a candid re-examination of the address and the accompanying letter, the President will doubtless see fit to recall the imputation.

By way of answer to the questions asked the signatories can find nothing but what seems to be a recommendation to them to apply to their Consuls for “protection.” It was not protection they asked, but information. It was not a sense of fear that moved them, but a sense of shame. It is their misfortune that they cannot address the President in his own language, or they would not now require to explain that the words “tend to damage the white races in the native mind,” quoted and misapplied by the President, do not express any fear of suffering by the hands of the Samoans, but in their good opinion, and were not the expression of any concern for the duration of peace, but of a sense of shame under what they conceived to be disgraceful imputations. While agreeing generally with the President’s expressed sentiment as to “anonymous rumours,” they feel that a line has to be drawn. Certain rumours they would not suffer to remain uncontradicted for an hour. It was natural, therefore, that when they heard a man of their own white race accused of conspiring to blow up the gaol and the prisoners who were there under the safeguard of his honour, they should attribute to the accused a similar impatience to be justified; and it is with a sense of painful surprise that they find themselves to have been mistaken.

(Signatures as to Number II.)

VI

    Apia, October 9, 1891.

Gentlemen, – Being in receipt of your communication under to-day’s date, I have the honour to inform you that I have undertaken the re-examination of your first address, which you believe would induce me to recall the answer I have given on the 2nd inst.

From this re-examination I have learned again that your appeal begins with the following statement: —

“Upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information.”

I have called this statement a seriously speaking to me in the name of the white residents, and I have objected to the truth of that statement.

If after a “candid re-examination” of the matter from your part you may refute me in either or both points, I shall be glad, indeed, in recalling my answer.

At present I beg to say that I see no reason for your supposing I misunderstood your expression of damaging the white races in the native mind, unless you have no other notion of protection than that applying to the body.

Concerning the assertion contained in the last clause of your second address, that five Samoan prisoners having been sentenced by a Samoan Judge for destroying houses were in the gaol of the Samoan Government “under the safeguard of my honour,” I ask for your permission to recommend this statement also and especially to your re-examination. – I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient servant,