Before becoming king on the death of his half-brother King Nangklao (Rama III), Prince Mongkut (later Rama IV) of Siam had written a confidential letter in English on the subject of establishing a British embassy in Bangkok to intermediaries of the diplomatic envoy Sir James Brooke (later Rajah of Sarawak). Mongkut explained that such an embassy would not likely happen under Nangklao, because “Siam is now of most absolute monarchy in the world, in which monarchy one’s oppinion [sic] is no use.” He went on to say further that regular people were “equal of animals and vegitables [sic] in the kingdom,” which wasn’t exactly encouraging either. However, Mongkut, unlike the far more intransigent Nangklao, was known to be a man of great perception and intelligence, and while Brooke’s mission ultimately failed, “without King Mongkut’s benign influence and open attitude, the fate of Siam at the hands of the British and other western powers could have been very different.”
It helped that in 1855 a new British envoy, Sir John Bowring, arrived in Bangkok; he had a reputation as “an upholder of liberal values”, subscribed to Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy, believed in free trade, and didn’t see the Siamese as an “inferior” race, even though King Mongkut had described his own people to Bowring as “half-civilized, half-barbarous”. This book is a story of trade, diplomacy, legal wranglings about property rights and ultimately the tragic death of an unfortunate Siamese man named Nai Seng, which resulted in a crisis involving King Mongkut and the first British consul. It’s also, of course, a story about people, and in spite of Landy’s detailed discussion of property issues and trade problems, the human element is never far from the surface, and it is this which gives life to this fascinating account of what was happening in these now far-off times.
It’s no exaggeration to say that relations between Britain and Siam started to change drastically with the accession of King Mongkut in 1851. Unlike the more autocratic Nangklao, Mongkut wanted to take Siam in a new direction; he would preserve its traditional values, but at the same time begin to turn it into a more modern (read Westernized) country, which he believed would be the best way to keep colonial powers such as France and Britain at arm’s length. If he were able to do this, they would be unlikely to mount an assault on an equal or impose one-sided treaties such as the British had done with China after the First Opium War (1842). Also, Mongkut saw a possibility that Siam could act as a “buffer” state between Burma, Malaya and French Indochina.
Recent historians, as Landy notes in his introduction, don’t paint such a rosy picture. He argues that Siam did in fact allow itself to get the short end of such treaties as it did sign, although not to the extent that China did. These treaties usually meant that the Asian country would open its ports to foreign ships, reduce trade taxes and relax restrictions governing cities where foreigners were allowed to live and trade. In Japan, for example, for centuries the only designated place where foreigners could live had been Nagasaki, and the only foreigners permitted to live there were the Dutch. The Siamese were not as rigid or xenophobic as the Japanese, and thus Bowring was eventually able to conclude a successful Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between Great Britain and Siam, effective from 1856. There was, however, no official British consul (or consulate) at the time Bowring’s treaty was concluded. Bowring himself was a “plenipotentiary”, an official who was given full powers to sign a treaty with a foreign country but was not really a full ambassador or consul. At the time he was accredited not just to Siam, but to Japan and what was then known as Cochin China, now Vietnam, and he carried letters from Queen Victoria herself to prove it, a detail which would carry considerable weight with the Siamese.
Landy, a distinguished expert on UK-Thai trade and investment resident in Thailand, begins with Bowring’s treaty and a chapter on property rights placed in the context of property rights laws in Siam and the history of how foreigners had attempted to deal with these. Much of the information in these chapters comes from the unpublished account of one of Bowring’s secretaries, Harry Parkes (the other secretary was Bowring’s son), later consul-general in China and Japan. Landy judiciously uses Parkes’s unpublished correspondence to re-examine the details of Bowring’s mission and the subsequent treaty, telling us that the Parkes material puts “more flesh on the debate going on in the Siamese court between the liberal and conservative factions.” The “liberal” faction, which wanted to push through modernising reforms, included King Mongkut, the Kalahom (Prime Minister) Si Suriyawong and Prince Wongsa, the king’s half-brother, but in spite of the high status of these people the “conservative” faction, which wanted things to remain as they were. was also powerful and included two of the senior commissioners who were dealing with the British. In addition to these officials, there was also the Phraklang (Minister of Foreign Affairs) Somdet (Lord) Ong Yai, who seemed, at least on the surface, also to be favourable to the British cause. The latter was in poor health and eventually died; his younger colleague, Somdet Ong Noi, was much less happy with the arrangements. Of course, the reality wasn’t quite that cut and dried, but readers can fill in the details for themselves. Suffice it to say that the success of Bowring’s mission owed a lot to Parkes’s “direct lobbying” of the king and how he related to the Siamese ministers.
In the end, Parkes was able to navigate Siamese property laws; Charles Batten Hillier, the Chief Magistrate of Hong Kong, described by Bowring as “a very valuable public servant”, was appointed as the first British consul and arrived in Bangkok on 5 June 1856 with his wife Eliza and three-year old daughter Maude. He is the consul named in the book’s title and the one involved in what Landy calls the “British tragedy”. Landy gives us in detail the labyrinthine history of geographical restrictions, land grants and property rights; in theory all land belonged to the king, but that “did not reflect reality”, and by the 19th century “the concept of land ownership supported by documentary evidence was only beginning to emerge,” although it was recognized that in fact there were limits to the king’s ownership powers. He could, though, make grants of land to whomever he liked. Land was “sold and mortgaged” in spite of this power, however, but “large swathes of the country’s land remained undocumented,” thus leading to problems about where to build the British consulate. There were also other foreigners who were looking for space, including Chinese and other traders and missionaries, both Catholic (French and Portuguese) and Protestant (American), all of whose trials and tribulations are discussed by Landy, as well as their relations with the British. An American missionary, Stephen Mattoon, acted as part-time United States consul, whilst Antonio Moor represented the French (part-time) and the Portuguese. Mattoon was regarded by Somdet Ong Noi as “a discreet good man” who “never lied” and “never got angry”, as well as being fluent in Thai. Moor, on the other hand, represented a fading imperial power and was pretty much ignored by the Siamese; his pay was so bad that he had to work as a merchant to make ends meet!
The book highlights the relationship between the British diplomats and Siamese officials, clearly indicating that the British often misunderstood how Siamese politics and law worked, while the Siamese were concerned about whether there was some agenda behind British desires to cement trading and diplomatic ties with their country. Furthermore, the Siamese had concluded an earlier agreement (1821) with the Portuguese, but no Portuguese ships had showed up to trade, and it looked like the Siamese government had made a treaty about nothing, which was a bit of an embarrassment. Why would the British be any different? Bowring had noted that the Portuguese did no trade, and put down the presence of their consul in Bangkok to a sense of national pride rather than any practical reason. What the British wanted to do now was to build a combination of a factory and a consulate, which is what occasioned the whole confusing legal wrangle, described in minute detail by Landy. The burden of this eventually weighed very heavily on the new consul, James Hillier, and, for him and others, would result in tragedy.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is how the character of King Mongkut emerges from it. Much admired by Thais and misrepresented to the West by Anna Leonowens and others, Mongkut comes across here as a highly intelligent and well-informed ruler, someone who sincerely did wish to make sure that Siam retained its independence in the face of the growing power of European imperialism in Asia. At times, though, the king had to walk on a tightrope and at others on eggshells; he had to keep his nobles and ministers happy whilst maintaining good relations with foreign powers at the same time. Mongkut was also a human being with a temper—sadly, he sometimes resorted to absolutism, making snap decisions and later repenting of them when it was too late to repair the damage.
One of these decisions was at the root of the tragedy, when he cruelly ordered the severe flogging of Nai Seng, a Thai teacher, for copying a land lease agreement with Christopher Puddicombe, an entrepreneur and master mariner whom Mongkut knew personally. Puddicombe wanted to buy wood for building a home and dockyard, but it was too expensive, so he went outside Bangkok to obtain it, for which Hillier granted him a permit, but, as Landy tells us, “his timber-buying expedition required a certain amount of guile as well as regulatory compliance.” Hillier, it seems, had misgivings but did nothing to stop Puddicombe, who went on to get Ai Fung, his foreman, to buy the land needed and then lease it back to him, violating Article IV of the Bowring Treaty. Mongkut found out and had the foreman arrested, after which he ordered Seng to be flogged ninety-nine times (in the king’s presence) for writing out the agreement, which resulted a few days later in Seng’s death. Hillier, by now suffering from dysentery, was caught in the middle of this; in the end he got Ai Fung released and Seng’s body delivered to the British embassy but died soon afterwards. Mongkut repented of his actions, realizing the possible diplomatic and political repercussions, and gave further gifts of land to the British as part of the compensation.
Landy’s book culminates with this tragedy, which appears to have been overlooked by historians; it does not whitewash the revered King Mongkut, and indeed serves as a balance to the overwhelmingly positive treatment he has received from many historians. Landy’s knowledge of Siamese property laws and treaty provisions, which lie at the basis of this event, is prodigious, and he unravels them in a clear and understandable way for readers, always making sure that there’s a human dimension present. This book should be read by anyone who wants a more balanced account of the actions of the Thai monarchy and of an episode which, although not very well-known, encapsulated the tensions between the British and the Siamese, which in this case could easily have escalated into a war.