The people are never taxed but with their own consent, and Sir J.'s private fortune has been spent in the government and improvement of the country; yet this is the man who has been accused of injuring other parties for his own private interests, and of wholesale murder and butchery to secure his government!...--Your ever affectionate son, ALFRED R. WALLACE. * * * * * TO HIS SISTER, MRS. SIMS _Singapore.. February 20, 1856._ My dear Fanny,-- ... I have now left Sarawak, where I began to feel quite at home, and may perhaps never return to it again; but I shall always look back with pleasure to my residence there and to my acquaintance with Sir James Brooke, who is a gentleman and a nobleman in the noblest sense of both words.... Charles has left me. He has stayed with the Bishop of Sarawak, who wants teachers and is going to try to educate him for one. I offered to take him on with me, paying him a fair price for all the insects, etc., he collected, but he preferred to stay. I hardly know whether to be glad or sorry he has left. It saves me a great deal of trouble and annoyance, and I feel it quite a relief to be without him. On the other hand, it is a considerable loss for me, as he had just begun to be valuable in collecting. I must now try and teach a China boy to collect and pin insects. My collections in Borneo have been very good, but some of them will, I fear, be injured by the long voyages of the ships. I have collected upwards of 25,000 insects, besides birds, shells, quadrupeds, and plants. The day I arrived here a vessel sailed for Macassar, and I fear I shall not have another chance for two months unless I go a roundabout way, and perhaps not then, so I have hardly made up my mind what to do,--Your affectionate brother, ALFRED R. WALLACE. * * * * * TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, THOMAS SIMS _Singapore. [Probably about March, 1856.]_