[
    {
        "id": 205782,
        "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": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "82\n\nKING MONGKUT OF SIAM AND HIS TREATY WITH BRITAIN\n\nROBERT BRUCE*\n\nWhen Sir John Bowring sailed up the river to Bangkok in March 1855 he was asked by King Mongkut not to fire a salute lest the citizens be alarmed. Sir John, Governor of Hong Kong and Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in the Far East, reluctantly agreed to postpone the ceremonial explosion from the Rattler's guns until the anxious citizens had been given one day's warning.\n\nThe Siamese had cause for concern. The Burmese, their traditional enemies, had been conquered by the British; and a dozen years before the Bowring mission the great Chinese Empire had been defeated by the British navy. On their eastern frontier, the Siamese watched with alarm the French encroachment on Cochin-China and their own dominion of Cambodia. To the south of the Isthmus of Kra British power was spreading into the Malay States, including Kedah, a feudatory of Siam. But their fears were to prove unfounded. The Bowring mission to Bangkok was completely successful for both British and Siamese. On April 18th, 1855, a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed, an agreement which was to secure for Siam, alone in south-east Asia, independence from colonial rule and which set her on the long, painful road of modernisation.\n\nForce had been used to 'open' China. In the same year as Bowring's peaceful mission to Bangkok Commodore Perry's American warships were demanding commerce and navigation rights of the Japanese. Even after the Treaty of Nanking had\n\n* This article, entitled \"King Mongkut of Siam\", appeared in History Today for October 1968. The original text, slightly extended, is reprinted here by permission of the Editor. Mr. Bruce lectured to the Hong Kong Branch on this subject in February 1968.\n\nMr. Bruce is at present a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Kentucky University, U.S.A. He served eight years as Representative of the British Council in Thailand and later filled the same post in Hong Kong where he was a member of Council of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Mr. Bruce was also one time Director of the Government School of Chinese Language at Kuala Lumpur, Malaya.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205795,
        "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": 101,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n95\n\nSiamese were willing to have a treaty which would open up trade and increase Western influence. They had some anxiety, however, about what the Cochin-Chinese, the Vietnamese would think about the treaty. Would they conclude that the Siamese had surrendered to the British? King Mongkut asked Bowring time and again to go to Cochin-China to make a similar treaty. The King was also anxious about the kind of man who would be chosen as British Consul, if this article of the treaty were accepted. Would he be as much a gentleman as Sir John? Bowring assured him that only the best man would be appointed and that he hoped to go to Cochin-China.\n\nThe whole business for this momentous treaty was transacted in the most felicitous manner. King Mongkut and his equally intelligent Prime Minister, Praya Suriwongse, understood the issues at stake; these were not merely the details of imports and exports, the appointment of Consuls and the rights of foreigners, they were no less than the independence of Siam and the beginning of her modernization. It was much to Bowring's credit (and to Harry Parkes and young Bowring) that he was able to gain the confidence of the King, to allay his fears, and to assure the Siamese that the new policy that the treaty was launching was greatly to their own as well as to the British advantage.\n\nThe Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed on 18th April, 1855, less than a month after the arrival of the mission. Its first article pledged perpetual peace and friendship and the protection of the two nations' subjects in each other's countries. Article 2 provided for the appointment of a British Consul at Bangkok who would have jurisdiction over British subjects in Siam. The third article was an extension of the second, requiring that Siamese offenders should be given up to Siamese justice and British offenders to British justice, that is, the Consul. This was the system of extra-territorial rights which had recently been obtained from the Chinese after the Opium War. It was an infringement of Siam's sovereignty but it gave assurance to British subjects that they would not be exposed to the severity of Siamese justice and encouraged the setting up of business houses. This right was given up in 1909, long before its withdrawal in China, in return for the independence of Kedah and the other northern Malay States from Siam. The next three articles of the treaty were all concerned with the rights of British subjects. They could",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205799,
        "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": 105,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n99\n\nsources the bestness and most curiosity of the new breach-loading cannon invented by Sir William Armstrong I was eagerly desirous of obtaining one small gun for my own enjoyment or play to see the power and curiosity and usefulness etc. thereof.....\"6\n\nHe was too fond of women but he is said to have treated his wives well and to have loved all his enormous nursery of children. If his harem may be regarded as a mark of eastern backwardness in a changing world his social and economic reforms vastly outweighed this defect. Mongkut was the pioneer in the modernisation of Siam. He had vision for the future of his country. Harry Parkes writing on the negotiations records this impression of the man:\n\n\"I was fortunate in securing and maintaining the friendship of the First King who listened to several of my propositions even against the will of his Ministers. He is really an enlightened man.... It is scarcely a matter of surprise that he should be capricious and at times not easily guided but he entered into the treaty well aware of its force and meaning and is determined, I believe, as far as in him lies, to execute faithfully all his engagements which are certainly of the most liberal nature.\"\n\nThe \"force and meaning\" of the Treaty was the opening of Siam to western commerce and ideas, social and economic reform and her continued independence. Balanced between competing empires, Siam accepted reform and western influence and by yielding, averted domination.\n\nThe circumstances of Mongkut's death were typical of the King. He predicted an eclipse of the sun in 1868 and made elaborate arrangements to observe the event. He chose a place far to the south, near the Malay States, and invited Sir Harry Ord, Governor of the Straits Settlements, his officials and their ladies to attend. Invitations had gone to Paris to send French scientists. A palace and residences for the distinguished visitors were built, and quantities of European food and wine were brought to this remote spot. The King with his suite of nobles and their wives sailed south for the occasion. Mongkut's prediction was right, and at the last moment the clouds cleared to reveal the eclipse. The foreign visitors were much impressed and Mongkut\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215782,
        "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": 81,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "14\n\n8 ref. to the map of the Malay Peninsula\n\n9 under the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Alliance of 1800\n\n10 (Malacca's land area included the town and hinterland about 40 miles long, 25 miles wide)\n\n\"Turnbull, Ibid, p 3 cf. SSR, S 32, Items 105, 204; SSR, R 45, pp 246-7\n\n12 under the Charter Act of 1833; cf. Hansard Parliamentary Debates 3rd series vol. cxlix p 988\n\n13 Turnbull, Ibid, p 3\n\n14 Turnbull, Ibid, p 4\n\n15 Turnbull, Ibid, p 4\n\n16 Turnbull, Ibid, p 4\n\n17 Turnbull, Ibid, p 4\n\n18 Turnbull, Ibid, p 4; Thio Eunice British Policy in the Malay Peninsula 1880-1910 Vol. 1 Introduction pp xvi–xvii\n\n19 Parliamentary Papers, 1862, xl (House of Commons) 259, pp 585-8; Straits Times and Singapore Journal of Commerce, 13 Oct 1857; Buckley C, An Anecdotal History of Old Time in Singapore\n\n20 cf. Hansard Parliamentary Debates 3rd ser. cxlix, 986-90\n\n21 Buckley C, Ibid p 755\n\n22 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements 1826-67 Chap 2 p 59\n\n23 Mills LA, British Malaya 1824-1867 Chap 5 p 96-97; Jones W, Public Administration in Malaya, Chap 1 p 13; Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons No 259 of 1862, 13 (Vol. xl)\n\nI\n\n24 Ibid, Chap 5 p 89",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215791,
        "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": 90,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "23\n\n86 they were considered a bad influence by Sir Richard MacCulloch, Recorder of Singapore 1856-66, and merchants and Grand Juries made \"vague accusations from time to time\" (Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 99)\n\n*for example, between 1830 and 1850, more than 1500 Thugs were sent to Singapore and Penang, and they played a prominent part in the Dusserah and Muharram festivals, turning them into the rowdy display of hooliganism they became by the middle of the century.' (Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 100)\n\n88 for example, transportation of convicts to the Straits Settlements were put to an end in 1860 (Annual retrospect for 1860 in SFP 10 Jan 1861)\n\n89 for example, Governor Cavenagh took a personal interest in the convict administration, the health of the convicts improved, death rates fell with more attention paid to their diet; better supervision, incentive bonuses enhanced their efficiency\n\n90 1857 riots\n\n\"1 albeit that their fears were groundless in most instances\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nPrimary Sources:\n\nHansard Parliamentary Debates 3rd ser, cxlix, (986 - 996) Parliamentary Papers, 1862, xl (House of Commons) The Straits Times and Singapore Journal of Commerce Singapore Free Press\n\nCO273 series (Straits Settlements, Original Correspondence) Straits Settlements Records (Microfilm 139, 141, 142, 184)\n\nTreaties:\n\nTreaty of 6 February 1819 (Johore 1819) (Treaties with Native States, Part III) Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between the EIC and the Sultan of Johore (1824) (Treaties with Native States Part III)\n\nTreaty of Peace, Friendship and Alliance of 1800 (Treaties with Native States, Part I)\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
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    }
]