[1] After rising to the rank of Lieutenant first class, he became an adjutant to the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies AJ Duymaer van Twist.
He accompanied him on his official journey through the Moluccas and anonymously produced the book Aanteekeningen betreffende eene reis door de Molukken (Item drawings concerning a journey through the Moluccas of the Governor-General AJ Duymaer van Twist,) published in The Hague in 1856.
Because of the distance between his plantation and her home in Semarang, much of their courtship was conducted by letter.
The Quarles van Ufford family is Dutch nobility, and Willem wanted Hendrik to find and marry a woman of similar rank.
Netje, who had been born in Semarang, was an orphan from a non-noble Dutch family.