"You Are A
Man Of High Birth In Your Country, But I'm A Man Of High Birth In Mine,
And, So Long As I Bear Queen Victoria's Commission, I Refuse To Accept
Insult.
I take no future orders from your highness." Nor, it is said,
has he.
My human surroundings have an unusual amount of piquancy. Mr. Maxwell
is very pleasant, strong, both physically and mentally, clever and
upright, educated at Oxford and Lincoln's Inn, but brought up in the
Straits Settlements, of which his father was chief-justice. He is able,
combative, dogmatic, well-read and well-informed, expresses himself
incisively, is self-reliant, strong-willed, thoroughly just, thoroughly
a gentleman, and has immense energy and business capacity, and a large
amount of governing power. He, too, likes talking, and talks well, but
with much perfectly good-natured vehemence. He is a man on whose word
one may implicitly rely. Brought up among Malays, and speaking their
language idiomatically, he not only likes them, but takes the trouble
to understand them and enter into their ideas and feelings. He studies
their literature, superstitions, and customs carefully, and has made
some valuable notes upon them. I should think that few people
understand the Malays better than he does. He dislikes the Chinese. I
have the very pleasant feeling regarding him that he is the right man
in the right place, and that his work is useful, conscientious, and
admirable. As Assistant Resident he is virtually dictator of Larut,
only subject to Mr. Low's interference.
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