[1] Shortly after his mother died on 30 April 1836, Henri Alexander moved from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands, together with his father and his brother Burchard.

[2] By royal decree of 23 January 1862, Elias was appointed governor of the Dutch Gold Coast, with the titular rank of lieutenant colonel.

[1] After his return to Europe, the Dutch ambassador in London requested Elias' and Cornelis Nagtglas' advice on the Anglo-Dutch Convention for an Interchange of Territory on the Gold Coast of Africa that was being negotiated at the time.

In this context, Elias and Nagtglas went to London in January 1867 to have an audience with Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies.

[5][1] The fact that a future governor of the Dutch Gold Coast was a fellow pupil of Kwasi Boakye and Kwame Poku at the boarding school of Van Moock in Delft has inspired the Maastricht University law professor and former judge Fokke Fernhout to write a story in which the friendship between Kwame Poku and Henri Alexander is the reason for the latter to accept the position of governor of the Dutch Gold Coast.