[
    {
        "id": 205783,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1969",
        "page_number": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n83\n\nopened the Treaty Ports and a second British conflict with China had proved the superiority of Western arms, the Chinese court refused to reform. The Japanese were quicker to read the signs. Only Siam, unlike her weak neighbours in the tropical south, was able to adapt herself to the new world without war or its threat and without loss of sovereignty.\n\nWhy was this? Was it because Britain and France had agreed to the Thai kingdom being a buffer between their Indian and Indo-Chinese empires? Or was it that the King of Siam who received Sir John Bowring had more vision than most of his Asian contemporaries and was succeeded by an equally gifted son? Whatever the reasons, the Treaty of 1855 was a major factor in determining the future of the Thai kingdom. It provided for the opening of diplomatic relations with Britain and, as a natural consequence, with other western nations. It introduced extra-territorial rights to British subjects living in Siam and allowed them to own or rent property. In commerce the Treaty abolished the strangling system of monopolies owned by the King and 'farmed' to Chinese merchants - replacing it by a free market with low duties on imports and exports. The year after the conclusion of the British treaty the Americans and the French secured similar agreements and these in turn were hastily followed by treaties with various European nations. These treaties marked a turning-point in the modern history of Siam.\n\nIn the century and a half which followed Louis XIV's mission to Ayuthia in 1689 Siam had little or no contact with the West. In the mid-eighteenth century her main preoccupation was the constant war with the Burmese who finally sacked their ancient and splendid capital in 1767. By the time the new house of Chakri had established the capital at Bangkok in 1782 the British East India Company had consolidated its dominion over India. The tea trade with China was growing rapidly and ports of call on the eastern run were obvious advantages. Francis Light obtained Penang island for the Company from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786 for the annual payment of $6,000 and the vague understanding of British protection. Kedah was an acknowledged feudatory of Siam, but at that time King Rama I was far too busy with the building of Bangkok to concern himself with the incident and the British were not then interested in Siam. Raffles had",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205785,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1969",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n85\n\nCrawfurd obtained neither better relations nor easier trading conditions. What is more he was received by King Rama II's officials in a most ungenerous manner. Dr. George Finlayson, the Scots medical officer and naturalist on board their ship the John Adam records this impression of the dwelling given to the mission by the Siamese: \"A habitation was provided for the British envoy, a miserable place, an out-house with four small, ill-ventilated rooms, approached through a trap-door from below...\" An official of low rank was sent to them. All he wanted was presents for the King. Finlayson goes on: \"In the urgency to obtain and the frequency of the demands of the Court for the gifts there was a degree of meanness and avidity at once disgusting and disgraceful\". The King seems to have been petty as well as rude. On one occasion the Foreign Minister called on Crawfurd to help retrieve two pairs of \"ordinary glass lamps\" on which the King had set his heart. The lamps had been promised, said the Foreign Minister, to His Majesty and sold by a member of the John Adam's crew to somebody else!\n\nFortunately the Crawfurd mission was not treated in such a mean manner throughout all its four months' stay at Bangkok. Dignity was restored by a Royal audience and there was much friendly talk. But he got no improvement in either trade or diplomacy. Crawfurd also tried to get the Siamese to accept a Consul and to obtain exemption for British merchants and crews from the harsh justice of Siam's law, but in these matters he had no success. He comments in his account of the Mission: \"If the subjects of a free and civilised Government resort to a barbarous and despotic country, there is no remedy but submission to its laws, however absurd or arbitrary\".\n\nFour years later, in 1826, the East India Company sent another mission to Bangkok. By this time the first campaign against the Burmese had been fought and won and there was a new king on the throne of Siam, Mongkut's half brother, Rama III. The mission was led by Captain Henry Burney, a nephew of Fanny Burney and military secretary to the Governor of Penang. He was much more successful than Crawfurd and came away with a treaty which somewhat improved matters. The Burney Treaty did not, however, go very far. It obtained a certain amount of goodwill regarding the frontier and the Malay States but Kedah was still accepted as Siam's vassal. Trade was to be free and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215015,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 111,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "67\n\nSome years earlier, Stuckey became involved in the evangelical movement. After qualifying as an actuary with the Association of the Institute of Actuaries [London], he left AMPS, returning to Adelaide University to study medicine, so that he could better follow his vow to become a missionary, being accepted by the London Missionary Society [LMS]. Even at University, Stuckey was involved with the evangelical movement, meeting his future wife, also a student, Frances Helen Campbell, who held similar feelings. They both graduated in 1903, Stuckey as MB, BSc [First Class] and Campbell as MA. He was appointed as Junior Demonstrator in Physics at Melbourne University. They became engaged and married on 12th July 1905.\n\nAfter a year as House Surgeon at Adelaide University, Stuckey went to London for post-graduate study, booking his passage as a ship's surgeon. On arrival in London the LMS notified him that he had been appointed to proceed at once to Siaochang, North China. He immediately returned to Australia, married Campbell and sailed from Sydney on 5th August 1905, arriving at Siaochang on 7th October, staying with Dr. and Mrs E. J. Peill and Rev. and Mrs J. D. Liddell. [Chariots of Fire - the parents of the famous runner] Dr. Peill was the brother of Dr. A. Peill, 'The beloved Physician of Tsangchou' and the Rev. S. G. Peill. Both Stuckeys started to learn Chinese, passing their final exam in 1908. In 1909 Stuckey was appointed Acting Dean of the Peking Union Medical College [PUMC], a teaching hospital supported by various missionary societies, and in September 1911 was appointed its Principal. He had become interested in diseases of the eye, publishing papers on his research.\n\nIn May 1913 Stuckey and his family, now four children, returned on leave to Melbourne, where he did eye work in various Melbourne hospitals and Deputation work for the LMS in all states except Western Australia. They returned to Peking in September 1914, where he resumed his role at the PUMC, also being elected Secretary of the Peking District Committee of the LMS.\n\nIn December 1916, Stuckey was approached by the British Legation as to his suitability for military service. After a joint decision with his wife, he left Peking on 12th March 1917 for Weihai Wei and to France for service with the CLC as a Lieutenant with the RAMC. He sailed via Nagasaki, Japan, under his C.O. Captain Hall Brutton, on the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215948,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 247,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "181\n\nSignificantly, this party was the only escape group without a regular military officer in their midst, and to have a Chinese to organise their escape and travel with them. All three Europeans were academics, without experience of up-to-date, modern military thinking. Moreover, given the nature of colonial society, they were used to being treated with deference. It would not have occurred to them to question why the Chinese along their escape route had been so helpful, or why they were met by Europeans in this very remote area, still bandit country, where few ventured, who were not only expecting them, but 'who were quite conversant with the route back to Kowloon and were assistants to FW Kendall, another member of the same organisation whose address... was c/o Col Chauvin, British Embassy, Chung King.'\n\nLt DF Davies, formerly a Lecturer in Physics, solemnly advised that he understood 'Col LT Ride of our party was to attempt some sort of underground railroad back to the Camp...(and) if they could be persuaded and/or allowed to carry out this work, I would suggest that the Cloak and Dagger Group be approached.' Since the Cloak and Dagger Boys they met were Z Force, this was in fact one of the jobs they had long been trained for.\n\nThe trip from Hong Kong had been stressful, not least because a commanding officer had told Ride in no uncertain terms before departure that he should be court-martialled on arrival in Chongqing for deserting his troops. From Lt Davies' report, we know that the group had talked with Z Force members about their organisation. Grimsdale was later to refer to Ride blaming Kendall as a 'complete failure' for delaying his departure from Kukong, then a safe town with Chinese Army presence. Ride himself makes no mention, describing the men later as mere escapees with the Chan Chak group.\n\nWhile still in Kukong, after meeting MacEwan and Talan, the group met Col Chauvin and Dr Wan Wan Yik Shin, a doctor who had served both in the Chinese Army and in the British RAMC. It was at this stage that Ride appears to have outlined his proposals to set up an elaborate escape and evasion organisation. By the time he arrived in Chongqing a few days later, he had formulated an elaborate proposal. Operational details were sketchy, to be left to others to sort out, naming Dr Wan and General Yu Mo Han, commander of Chinese forces in the area. On one point he was unequivocally adamant: that 'the section should be under the command of Lt Col Ride.' It was an absolutely essential prerequisite that the British authorities provide him with a letter confirming his",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]