Van Rees wasted no time. Within two days the investigation had begun but, as he pleaded to Rochussen, it was no easy task. The police had never had to deal with such an event. He insisted that in the last thirty-three years that the Indies had shown itself to be a “jewel of the Dutch crown,” there had never been a gathering of six hundred to seven hundred Europe- ans and Indische Christians in any public place intent on treating subjects of a political nature.

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 492