CLOUDED FRIENDSHIPS
The favour of the king was for a time withdrawn by reason of an incident the character of which was vague to the missionaries at the time. Later the cause of the estrangement was discovered to be a letter which appeared in an English journal at Straits Settlement in October, 1854. The offending letter not only misrepresented some acts of the government but calumniated the character of the king, and insinuated that he was held in low esteem by the missionaries as well as by other foreigners. For some reason the king ascribed the authorship of this letter to a missionary who had recently passed through Singapore; and among his officials, as learned later, he threatened to expel the missionaries except Dr. Bradley and Dr. House.
The first warning of royal displeasure was the arrest of the Siamese teachers on the fictitious charge of teaching the sacred language to foreigners. Then the missionary ladies, presenting themselves at the palace gate as usual for admission to teach their classes, were ignored. The missionaries, essaying to go out to the sea coast for recuperation learned that a decree had been issued to limit their movements; but inquiry received only evasive explanations. Finally the king sent a demand that the missionaries collectively should sign a paper disclaiming authorship of the letter and denying in toto its imputation; this demand was made before they had seen the letter, but it gave them an understanding of the trouble.
After consultation they declined to assent to this demand, partly because it might be construed as an acknowledgment of responsibility, and partly because they considered it impolitic to make a general defense of the government, some of whose affairs they did not fully approve. However, they drew up a paper denying their complicity in the publication and reaffirming their friendship towards the king. After several months the teachers were allowed to return to the mission, but with an admonition against giving out “false information lest the missionaries put it in their letters and send it out of the country”; the decree of restriction, however, continued in force for some time. The servants, returning to the mission compound, reported the nature of the examination to which they had been subjected by the king, and Dr. House records the following: “Being asked which missionaries he visited in his work, one replied ‘Maw House.’ ‘Well,’ said the king, ‘Maw House is good hearted, affable and good humoured,’ and thus was evidently satisfied that the unfavourable reports could not be laid to the teachers.”
Dr. House quietly pursued an inquiry into this matter, and after some months came to the conclusion that the instigator, if not the actual writer of the letter, was a certain Captain Trail, commander of one of the king’s trading vessels. It seems that while in Singapore port, one night at eleven o’clock the captain fired a salute in honour of a ball on shore given by a friend. The British consul complained to his superior against the alarm caused by the firing, and his government forwarded the complaint to Bangkok. The captain was arrested and cast into a native gaol, which was crowded with low class prisoners, and was there for several days before his friends learned of the case. Some of the missionaries interceded for him and secured his release. When he left Bangkok he threatened to get even with the government for his treatment, and there was good reason to suppose that the letter was the means of revenge he took.
This entry in Dr. House’s journal was annotated in pencil several years afterwards, adding “the letter was doubtless gotten up between Josephs (the Armenian merchant) and Capt. Eames, a friend of Captain Trail, with the knowledge of the prime minister, who was piqued at the king, and whose knowledge of the state affairs had given the insinuations in the letter which aroused the king’s hostility.” Fortunately, time convinced the king of the total innocence of all the missionaries and in due time the cloud of disfavour vanished.
VIII
SIAM OPENS HER DOORS—MORE WORKERS ENTER
The accession of King Mongkut so completely changed the attitude of the government towards foreign nations that the danger of a clash with England disappeared over night. In due course of time Queen Victoria sent a note of congratulations to the new Siamese sovereign and expressed her desire to send an envoy for the purpose of revising the existing treaty. Upon receipt of this letter the king despatched it to Dr. House with the request to “transcribe it in a plain, legible hand”; for though the king could read and write English fairly, he preferred to have letters from abroad transcribed in a handwriting with which he was familiar, to avoid misunderstanding. In this connection, Mrs. Leonowens, who acted as his English secretary some years later, says that at times the king would insist upon his own diction in English in spite of warning of its turgidity, and when his communications of this character were misinterpreted he would lay the blame on his amanuensis.
In March, 1855, the English embassy arrived. The special envoy was Sir John Bowring, Vice-Admiral and Governor of the English colony at Hong Kong. Dr. House had, some years before, received a friendly letter from Sir John through his son John C. Bowring, for whom Dr. House was collecting specimens of Siamese insects; and he looked forward with great pleasure to a personal meeting with the noted English diplomat. Again the king sent to the doctor a succession of notes received from Sir John announcing his arrival, requesting a private audience, etc., desiring these notes to be transcribed; by which means Dr. House was kept informed of the progress of affairs.