IN THE SOUTH SEAS: LETTERS FROM SAMOA - CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CERTAIN RESIDENTS OF APIA AND BARON SENFFT VON PILSACH. LETTER 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,
FRHR. SENFFT VON
PILSACH.