RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO 29 LOWER TERRACE - Cont'd. No. Name Sex Row Age Date of Death Nationality 60. LJUNGSTEDT, Anders (Andrew) M Bamboo 76 10 Nov. 1835 Swed. 61. RITCHIE, John Hamilton M Bamboo 12/12 14 March 1844 Amer. 62. FRASER, Sir William M Bamboo 40 22 Dec. 1827 Br. 63. RIDDLES, Thomas William M Riddles 41 21 Aug. 1856 Br. 64. GRIFFIN, John P. M Riddles 35 19 June 1849 Amer. 65. SWEARLIN, Valentine M Riddles 27 20 June 1849 Amer. 66. GRAHAM, Charles M Riddles 50 3 Oct. 1821 Br. 67. WILSON, John M Riddles 21 21 Nov. 1844 Br. 68. BROOKE John F. M Riddles 59 17 Oct. 1849 Amer. 69. OSBORNE, Thomas J. M Riddles 30 2 June 1847 Br. 70. LEGGETT, William Henry M Riddles 43 23 Sept. 1845 Br. 71. OSBORNE, Henry James M Riddles 26 23 July 1845 Br. 72. HAMILTON, Lewis M Riddles 67 14 May 1845 Amer. 73. ENGLE, Isaac E. M Riddles 46 3 Nov. 1844 Amer. 74. WARREN, R. V. 75. WALDRON, Thomas Westbrook M Riddles 30 8 Sept. 1844 Amer. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 BOOK REVIEWS 147 Thomas Braddell, James Guthrie, A. L. Johnston, W. H. Read and 'Mr. Whampoa' (Hoo Ah Kay) are traced. The setting is that of a British colonial society in its heyday; the viewpoint is rather parochial. The author was himself a prominent resident of Singapore for nearly fifty years. He arrived there in 1864, having been told by W. H. Read that it was ‘a fine healthy place for a young man'. He dryly noted that at the time of writing (1902) the English idea that Singapore was somewhere in the centre of India was becoming less generally held. The author writes over-modestly that his book 'will interest those only who have some association with Singapore'. It should in fact interest many today for its detailed picture of the years of growth of a great South-east Asian city-state. To take one year — 1848 — at random; we read of Chinese gang robberies, the P. & O. mail, restrictions on firecrackers at Chinese New Year, the price of gambier, the inability of the Government of India to understand the special conditions and needs of the Straits Settlements, the sending of Chinese convicts from Hong Kong to Singapore, the trade depression, interference by the Malay ruler of Johore with the movement of guttapercha to Singapore, the failure of the Balestier sugar plantation, Captain Keppel and the new harbour, the arrival of Mr. James Brooke on his way to Labuan, and Singapore as a naval station. The author remarks, in passing, that the year 1848 had also been a very exciting time all over Europe'. The Anecdotal History was well worth re-publishing for its lively if limited treatment of an era in Singapore's history. There is an excellent index, particularly important in a work of this kind. University of Hong Kong. B. HARRISON VIA PORTS: FROM HONG KONG TO HONG KONG, Alexander Grantham. Hong Kong University Press, 1965. pp. HK$30. The author, Alexander William George Herder Grantham, is better known to the people of Hong Kong as Sir Alexander, Governor from 1947 to 1957. His book traces his own official career from 1922 when he arrived from England as a Government Cadet, to 1957 when he retired as the Governor. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 86 R. BRUCE monopolies abolished whilst levies on imports were to be limited, and vessels were to pay a tax on their size. But Burney failed to get permission for a British Consul to reside at Bangkok. Nor was he able to free British nationals from Siamese law. Next came the Americans. A merchant, Mr. Edmund Roberts, was commissioned by the President to secure a treaty at least as good as the British one. This was seven years later, in 1833. Although a President seemed to the Siamese a much less august personage than a King and America was both remote and less important, Roberts secured his treaty. It was almost exactly the same as the Burney agreement. In the next two decades, especially in the "forties, trade became more difficult. In fact the treaties with the British and the Americans gradually eroded away, and the old monopolies were taken back by the Court. Imports and exports were farmed to Chinese merchants by the King. Duties were arbitrary and heavy and trade dwindled. Everywhere else the British had greatly expanded their commerce by mid-century. Singapore was growing rapidly, the China trade had increased still further after the Opium War, the northern coast of Borneo was open to British commerce. It seemed only natural and civilised to the bold merchant princes and sea captains of Victorian England that Siam should, willy-nilly, share in the new prosperity, especially now that the first steamships had reached the Gulf of Siam. Sir James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, was the next British envoy to sail up the Menam to Bangkok. He came in August 1850 on board H.M.S. Sphinx accompanied by a merchant vessel of the Company, the Nemesis, both steamers. Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, cautioned Sir James to be careful in his quest for better trade. "In conducting these negotiations", he directed, “you must be very careful not to get involved in any disputes or hostile proceedings which would render our position in Siam worse than it now is or which might compel Her Majesty's Government to have recourse to forcible measures in order to obtain redress. It is very important that if your efforts should not succeed they should at least leave things as they are and should not expose us to the alternative of submitting to fresh affront or of undertaking expensive operations to punish insult”.' ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 87 Pursuing this conciliatory line Brooke came to Bangkok determined to win the confidence of the Siamese and to allay their fears. He wrote to a friend: "I shall not seek to make a treaty in a hurry. I shall try to remove apprehensions and obstacles and pave the way for the future. The King is old and a usurper; he has two legitimate brothers, clever and enlightened, who ought to be raised to the throne.... A treaty extorted by force would be but a wasted bit of parchment... The Prince Chow-fa Mongkut is an educated man, reads and writes English and knows something of our literature and science".2 With such admirable sentiments Rajah Brooke arrived at the mouth of the Menam. Everything went wrong. The Sphinx ran aground attempting to cross the bar at Paknam. When he met the Praklang (the Foreign Minister), every point he raised was opposed. Was there any need for a treaty? What was wrong with the Burney treaty of 1826? When Brooke asked for more freedom of trade the Praklang replied that trade was already free. As for the British having a Consul at Bangkok and being exempt from Siamese law, both proposals were unnecessary and improper. Later talks with the Siamese Ministers made no more progress. They asked Brooke to put his points in writing but letters between the two sides made no more progress than conversations. It was clear that the Siamese did not want a treaty or any improvement in trade or diplomacy with Britain. The Brooke mission was obviously failing. And as frustration grew Sir James's conciliatory attitude changed. Finally he advised force. In a dispatch to the Foreign Minister he wrote: “Should these just demands firmly urged be refused, a force should be present immediately to enforce them by a rapid destruction of the defences of the river which would place us in possession of the capital and by restoring us to our proper position of command, retrieve the past and ensure peace for the future, with all its advantages of a growing and most important commerce."3 Brooke alleged, with some justice, that the Burney Treaty had been broken by the Siamese. Monopolies had been restored, trade was no longer free and taxes on British vessels had increased. In ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 93 The new King imported printing presses, mainly for the publication of Buddhist writings. He encouraged monks to teach in the monasteries. He continued his own studies, particularly of astronomy and acquired telescopes and other scientific equipment. Some ten years after he became King he took the unprecedented step of employing a foreign woman, the celebrated Anna Leonowens, to act as governess and tutor to his numerous children. King Mongkut built roads, canals and bridges. New Wats and new palaces were constructed at his command. He encouraged ship-building and personally supervised the building of the first steam-boat on the Menam, importing an engine from England. He abolished the corvée forced labour required for land or other privileges and replaced it by taxation. There was no limit to his energy or his delight in innovation, but in one respect King Mongkut saw no need for change. He kept an enormous harem in his Palace. Having been celibate for twenty-seven years he now set about building the biggest Royal Family of the Chakri Dynasty. In the "Inside" of the Palace there was a veritable city of women - reports say three thousand or more. They were mostly servants, 'Amazons' for guards, officials, maids and so on, but Mongkut acquired thirty-two wives and by the time he died, aged sixty-four, he had eighty-two children. Some accounts put the number of wives and concubines much higher. Townshend Harris, the American envoy who concluded a treaty with Siam in 1856 - following the British success in 1855 - commented in his dispatches to Washington: "After some twenty years spent in the rigid celibacy of the priesthood the King gives up a large portion of his time to voluptuous pleasures.... he is indulging himself in a manner equally repugnant to decency and the laws of his religion of which he was a stern supporter while in the priesthood." It was, of course, a custom and one required especially of the monarch, but it is a little surprising that the reforming zeal of the King did not extend to his prodigious practice of polygamy. Of all his reforms the most significant was in his relations with the West. As soon as he became King a new attitude was revealed. He indicated willingness to have a return visit from the disappointed Brooke of Sarawak. Could Sir James come, he said, a little later to allow for the prolonged cremation ceremonies ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 98 : R. BRUCE 100 R. BRUCE was delighted. But it was then, enjoying his astronomy, showing off his English, and gratifying his vanity in front of foreign dignitaries, that he contracted a fever from which he never recovered. He returned to Bangkok and was dead within a few weeks. The work which he had started was carried on by his Prime Minister, Praya Suriwongse, who acted as Regent of the country until the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn came of age. His reign was successful but the way had been opened by his father, King Mongkut. BIBLIOGRAPHY Sir John Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, London, Parker and Son, 1857. W. A. R. Wood, A History of Siam, Bangkok 1924. D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-east Asia, London, 2nd edn., 1964. A. L. Moffat, Mongkut, the King of Siam, Cornell U.P., 1961. A. B. Griswold, King Mongkut of Siam, New York, Asia Soc., 1961, Walter F. Vella, 'The Impact of the West on Government in Thailand' in Publications on Political Science, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 317-415, University of California Press, 1955. Various Journals of the Siam Society, Bangkok. The quoted passages listed 1-6 are from the following:- 1. 2. 3. From 'Siam and Sir James Brooke' by Nicholas Tarling in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. XLVII Part 2, November 1960. 4. From The Kingdom and People of Siam by Sir John Bowring, London, 1857. 5. From Mongkut, the King of Siam by Abbot Law Moffat, Cornell University Press, 1961. 6. From 'English Correspondence of King Mongkut' in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. XXII, July 1928. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 100 R. BRUCE was delighted. But it was then, enjoying his astronomy, showing off his English, and gratifying his vanity in front of foreign dignitaries, that he contracted a fever from which he never recovered. He returned to Bangkok and was dead within a few weeks. The work which he had started was carried on by his Prime Minister, Praya Suriwongse, who acted as Regent of the country until the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn came of age. His reign was successful but the way had been opened by his father, King Mongkut. BIBLIOGRAPHY Sir John Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, London, Parker and Son, 1857. W. A. R. Wood, A History of Siam, Bangkok 1924. D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-east Asia, London, 2nd edn., 1964. A. L. Moffat, Mongkut, the King of Siam, Cornell U.P., 1961. A. B. Griswold, King Mongkut of Siam, New York, Asia Soc., 1961. Walter F. Vella, 'The Impact of the West on Government in Thailand' in Publications on Political Science, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 317-415, University of California Press, 1955. Various Journals of the Siam Society, Bangkok. The quoted passages listed 1-6 are from the following:- 1. 2. 3. From 'Siam and Sir James Brooke' by Nicholas Tarling in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. XLVII Part 2, November 1960. 4. From The Kingdom and People of Siam by Sir John Bowring, London, 1857. 5. From Mongkut, the King of Siam by Abbot Law Moffat, Cornell University Press, 1961. 6. From 'English Correspondence of King Mongkut' in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. XXII, July 1928. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1971 · HON. TREASURER's ReporT FOR 1971 - THE LIBRARY, 1971 - - TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH Chinese Medicine and its Contribution to Modern Medical Science (A Lecture given on 16th November, 1971) DR. F. I. TSEUNG - Some Nineteenth Century Water Colours of Canton and the Far East (A Lecture given on 15th December, 1971) P. H. COLLIN - Raja James Brooke and Sarawak: An Anomaly in the 19th Century British Colonial Scene (A Lecture given on 18th January 1972) -DR. L. R. WRIGHT ARTICLES: The Establishment of the Tsungli Yamen: A Translation of the Memorial and Edict of 1861 — J. L. CRANMER-BYNG Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart: Colonial Civil Servant and Scholar- HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE A Historical Review of Housing Conditions in Hong Kong DR. E. G. PRYOR Traditional Chinese Regional Architecture: Chinese Houses LINDA F. SULLIVAN · - Page 1 6 9 12 20 29 41 - - 55 89 130 The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair Dafydd Emrys Evans Archaeology in Hong Kong and South China (1938) — W. SCHOFIELD ― Three Chinese Deities: Variations on a Theme KEITH STEVENS NOTES AND QUERIES - Who Hoisted the Union Jack? DR. J. R. JONES China's Earliest Printing—a Note a Note L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH - - Unusual Trees in Hong Kong: the Canton Water Pine SHEN DZE-CHIA A Note on Agricultural Change in Hong Kong AIJMER - Letting Go the Wooden Goose JAMES HAYES 150 - · 161 169 196 - 197 - 198 GORAN - 201 207 - 207 - 213 Programme Notes for the Visit to Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island, 29th July, 1972 - JAMES HAYES - BOOK REVIEWS - ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK 35 recognition. But Clarendon would not agree. He consulted the Law Officers and concluded that while it was legally possible for the Queen to permit one of her subjects to assume the sovereignty of a foreign state and to so recognize him, it is to be done only in exceptional circumstances. Brooke could not be recognized. Lord Clarendon wrote to St. John on this occasion, Her Majesty's Government entirely agree with you in thinking that British interests in Borneo are so closely interwoven with the prosperity of Sarawak that whatever injuriously affects the latter must also be injurious to the former. Therefore Her Majesty's Government hardly believe that Sir James Brooke will place himself in direct antagonism to Her Majesty's Government by refusing to allow you to act within the territory which is subject to his rule, and thereby compel Her Majesty's Government to make known to the natives that no British subject can exercise sovereign authority without the permission of his sovereign, which permission has not been obtained by him, and that consequently he is acting against the law of England; whereas if he avoids insisting upon a recognition of his independent sovereignty which is inconsistent with his position as a British subject, his supreme authority at Sarawak upon whatever basis it may rest, whether upon the grant of the Sultan or the choice of the people, will remain undisturbed and unquestioned. Although on this occasion Lord Clarendon had his way, it is interesting to note that the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston did not agree. He wrote later, 9 The question seems to be rather between the sultan of Borneo and the raja of Sarawak than between the latter and the sovereign of England. But so far as we are concerned there does not seem to be any strong reason why we should not deal with Sarawak as an independent state, and if it is so, we might ask for an exequatur from the powers that be. III. This then posed the question that bothered ministers and under-secretaries for more than three decades in their dealings with & Clarendon to St. John, 9 April 1856, FO12/23. Palmerston memo., 6 August 1856, FO12/23, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK 37 France, and in 1859 he "broke off" relations with Britain, upon which the Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell commented,12 Tell Brooke that the people of Sarawak are welcome to any independence they can achieve and maintain but that a British subject cannot throw off his allegiance at pleasure. And Spencer St. John noted13 that "the Raja's correspondence during this year with Her Majesty's Government was not pleasant, and ended, apparently, in complete estrangement”. Over the years Brooke had acquired a respectable following of supporters in Britain and Singapore, among whom were some influential figures such as Lord Grey, Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, and the late Victorian philanthropist, Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts, later Baroness Burdett-Coutts. His friends now took up his cause and lobbied Whitehall from the Prime Minister's office down. Britain refused to extend a colonial or protectorate status to Sarawak on practical political grounds. Henry Layard, an under-secretary in the Foreign Office, wrote that a protectorate was declined because of the "inconvenience of such relations between this country and a foreign territory", because Sarawak “would not be of sufficient value politically and commercially", and because Brooke's title was not "sufficiently clear"14 Brooke's friends persuaded the Government to have another look at Sarawak, and in 1861 Lord Elgin, who was about to depart as the new viceroy of India, was instructed to investigate the prospects and potential of Sarawak. He delegated the task to Colonel Cavenagh, Governor of the Straits Settlements. In due course Cavenagh and Elgin provided an optimistic assessment of Raja Brooke's state and suggested making Sarawak a lieutenant-governorship under Singapore. "I am disposed to think", wrote Lord Elgin,15 that the acquisition of Saigon by the French and the persistent endeavor of the Dutch authorities to cripple British trade... give enhanced importance to the preservation of the independence of Sarawak as a matter affecting British interests.' 12 See correspondence between the Foreign Office and Raja Brooke between 26 November and 17 December 1859, FO12/35. 13 Spencer St. John, Life of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, (Edinburgh, 1879) p. 327. 14 Layard memorandum to Lord Elgin, 2 January 1862, FO12/35. 15 Elgin to Russell, 8 January 1863, FO12/35. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 38 LEIGH R. WRIGHT In the meantime Brooke's friend St. John, the Consul in Brunei, provided strong evidence to support Sarawak's claim of independence. In correspondence between the Sultan and the Foreign Office, Raja Brooke's relations with Brunei were the subject of discussion. Lord Russell in 1861 asked the consul if it was true that Brunei looked upon Sarawak as an independent state. He had been told that the Sultan honoured the Raja with a twenty-one gun salute whenever he visited Brunei Town. St. John replied that the Sultan did indeed consider Sarawak independent of Brunei. St. John also produced minutes of an interview he had had with the leading chiefs of Sarawak in which they unanimously confirmed that they had chosen the Tuan Besar, James Brooke, to rule over them in place of the harsh and tyrannical chiefs of Brunei, and that they owed no allegiance to the Sultan of Brunei.16 When, then, St. John's tour as Consul in Brunei ended in 1862 Brooke's friends, with a concerted lobbying effort, prevailed upon the Palmerston government to appoint a consul to Sarawak as distinct from Brunei. In August 1863 the Cabinet approved the appointment "as the most direct and least formal method of recognizing it as an independent state". Whatever in the way of reservations Lord Russell may have held concerning Brooke and Sarawak he was aware that the appointment meant recognition. He minuted some time earlier,17 If we appoint a consul I suppose he must be appointed to reside in the territory of the rajah of Sarawak as an independent sovereign. And later, when Russell was urged to inform Raja Brooke "that the Cabinet had consented to recognize Sarawak by appointing a consul there", the Foreign Secretary instructed his undersecretary, "We may write to Sir James Brooke to say that he has reason to believe it". The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, concurred. However, bureaucratic procedures now took over, and the Consul's instructions directed him to procure his official acceptance from 16 See L. R. Wright, Origins of British Borneo, pp. 75-76; and St. John, "Minutes of an interview with Sarawak Chiefs", 25th October 1855, FO 12/22. 17 Russell minute on a memo, by Brooke, 13 August 1863, in the Layard Papers (British Museum), ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 244, 18 Russell minute, Layard Papers, ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 245. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 212 Stockholm Statens Etnografiska Museum, 1866 Skrine, CP, Chinese Central Asia, London. Methuen, 1926 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Sladen, Douglas Brooke Wheelton, The Japanese at Home, 5th edition, with Bits of China, London and New York Waid, Lock and Bowden, 1895 Smedley, Agnes, Chinese Destinies - Sketches, New York Vanguard, 1933 - China Correspondent, London Routledge and Kegan. 1934 - Battle Hymn of China, New York Knopf, 1943 + Smith, Carl T, Chinese Christians Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1985 Smith, Richard J, Mercenaries and Mandarins: the Ever-Victorious Army in Nineteenth Century China, New York KTO Press, 1978 Smith, Ronald Bishop, A Projected Portuguese Voyage to China in 1512 and New Notices Relative to Tome Pires in Canton, Bethesda (Maryland) L Decatur Press, 1972 Spence, Jonathan, To Change China: Western Advisers in China 1620-1960, Boston Little Brown, 1969 The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, New York Viking Penguin, 1984 Staunton, Sir George Leonard, An Authentic Account of An Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, London G Nicol, 1798 Stein, Sir Mark Aurel, Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1921 Stern, Simon Adler, Jettings of Travel in China and Japan, Philadelphia Porter and Coates, 1888 (WB11894) Szczesniak, Boleslaw, The Writings of Michael Boym, Monumenta Serica XIV (1949-55), 481-538 Taylor, Francis, mss (Bodleian Library Ms Rawl D391/95-98) Letters of Francis Taylor to Dr Edward Browne April 25, 1703 off Ancuago on coast of China, Teignmouth, Henry Noel Shore, (b 1847), The Flight of Lapwing, a Naval Officer's Jottings in China, London Longmans, 1881 Thomas, James A, A Pioneer Tobacco Merchant in the Orient, Durham NC Duke University Press, 1928. ================================================================================