Fragment of Letter from Hendrik P. Scholte to G. Groen van Prinsterer

A fragment of a letter of Hendrik P. Scholte to G. Groen van Prinsterer concerning emigration to North America or Java. We have come to the conclusion that this government is completely unwilling to promote any kind of emigration to Java even though the Minister admitted that vast land regions were lying unused... [The attitude of the government] does not help the urgent unemployment and poverty of the people in Gelderland....The stubborn opposition of the governemnt against freedom of religion and education encourages the wish to leave....In North America, the land lies empty, there is complete religious and educational freedom, even if the number of emigrants is large and they stay together with the acquisition of land the local government will remain in the hands of the colonists.https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/vrp_1840s/1075/thumbnail.jp