Military Science-Embassies to Siam.

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There is a more interesting chapter on the diplomatic and commercial relations of the Western nations with Siam. The Portuguese were the first who maintained relations with the Siamese. Their purposes mingled the conquest of territory with the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith; but there are no records of formal treaties either with the Court of Lisbon or any of the Portuguese factories established to the east of the Cape of Good Hope. In 1604, the first attempt was successfully made on the part of the Dutch to open intercourse, followed by a Siamese embassy to Bantam. From Java, the Siamese ambassador made a trip to Holland, in 1608, when the Siamese expressed much surprise at finding that the Dutch actually possessed a country of their own, and were not a nation of pirates, as the Portuguese insinuated. In 1634, the Dutch trade had become very important, and a profitable outlet was found in Japan for some Siamese articles of export. A splendid factory and extensive fortified warehouses were then built by the Dutch. In 1663, the Dutch East India Company had to complain of some breach of treaty on the part of the Siamese; and, conscious of their predominant interest, caused their traffic to be suspended, and their agent to take his departure. This produced the desired effect; for, in the next year, Siamese ambassadors came to Batavia to treat for a reconciliation, and to comply with the Company's demands, upon which trade resumed its course.

In Dr. Bowring's visit to Siam, he found among the people no traces of the Dutch ever having visited the country, none claiming descent from them, and none bearing the Dutch name, while there were many Siamese who gloried in Portuguese patronymics. In the time of Louis XIV., the French sent an embassy to Siam, with the declared and ostentatious purpose of converting the King. Six Jesuits, mathematicians, accompanied the mission, which arrived off the Meinam in 1685; but the King would not change a religion followed uninterruptedly throughout his kingdom for the new faith. All that France gained by the mission, according to the Lettres Edifiantes, was a treaty, one of the conditions of which was that the Siamese were to deliver to the French all the pepper produced in Siam at a certain specified price.

The Spanish embassy, in the time of Philip V., was even more infructuous than the French.

Of the English embassies, Mr. Craufurd's was the first in point of time. It took place in 1822, and Mr. Craufurd published an account of it in 1828. The reception of Mr. Craufurd was in no respect flattering. On arrival at Paknam, on the 26th of March, 1822, we could not' (says Mr. Finlaison) 'fail to remark that the different personages who had as yet visited us were either of very

low rank, or of none at all.' The person of 'some rank' who had been announced did not appear. When a habitation was at length provided for the embassy, it was a miserable one, approached through a trap-door from below, and on three sides almost entirely excluded from fresh air. The envoy and suite had at length a public audience of the King. The scene was singular and humiliating. Excepting a narrow passage left along the centre for the passage of the envoy and suite, the whole pavement of the hall was covered by a prostrate multitude, their heads bowed down to the earth in the direction of the throne, and their hands alone raised, clasped in an attitude of devotion. The King, seated above the crowd, seemed like an inanimate figure. The envoy and suite being seated, the audience commenced by a loud reading of the lists of presents. This being finished, the King, in an oracular voice, proposed a few unimportant questions to the envoy; and his answers being received, were conveyed to the throne. After a short silence, a signal, resembling in sound large castanets, accompanied by a flourish of trumpets, announced the close of the audience; and the golden curtain being drawn, the King retired. The rapacity and, curiosity of the subordinates Mr. Craufurd found very troublesome. The result of the mission was an agreement that English merchant-ships might come to the mouth of the Meinam, where they would be searched 'by the Governor of Paknam, and their small arms and cannon 'landed, according to former custom, and then the ships would be conducted to the capital.'

Captain Burney's mission, in 1826, also from the GovernorGeneral of India, followed Mr. Craufurd's. It was then deemed an object of much importance to negotiate a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Siamese. Few of Captain Burney's propositions were entertained by them, though the arrangements he then made were the best that could be effected.

An American mission, that of Mr. Roberts, reached Siam in 1833, and a treaty was ratified on the 14th April, 1836. But the terms of the treaty are so little favourable to commerce, that it could confer no benefit on either America or Siam, and it has remained a dead letter from the first.

The next mission was that of Sir J. Brooke. He was charged with plenipotentiary powers by the Queen, and arrived at Siam in 1850. On the 22nd of August, the mission proceeded in numerous barges to Bangkok. All the attempts of Rajah Brooke to conclude a satisfactory treaty with Siam were unavailing, and he finally broke off his communications with the Siamese Government on the 28th September, 1850, and left the country with

Sir John Bowring's Treaty.

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a very unfavourable impression as to our future prospects of success in establishing commercial relations with this remarkable people. Sir J. Brooke had not left Paknam when a United States sloop of war arrived, bringing Mr. Ballestier to represent the grievances of which the United States citizens had to complain, and to obtain a more favourable treaty. Mr. Balestier's reception was by no means favourable, and he failed altogether in the object of his visit. He was refused an audience with the King, and finally left without presenting the President's letter -without the gratification of making a new treaty of amity and commerce, or even modifying the treaty already existing between the two Governments.

Sir John Bowring's mission, as we have already stated, took place in 1855. The Siamese Commissioners were appointed by the two Kings on the 8th April, and a Treaty of friendship and commerce between her Majesty and the Kings of Siam was signed at Bangkok on April 18th, 1855.

By the 1st Article of this instrument, it is provided that all British subjects coming to Siam shall receive from the Siamese Government full protection and assistance, to enable them to reside in Siam in all security, and trade with every facility, free from oppression or injury on the part of the Siamese.

By the 6th Article, it is provided that all British subjects visiting or residing in Siam shall be allowed the free use of the Christian religion, and liberty to build churches in such localities as shall be consented to by the Chinese authorities.

Another Article of the Treaty allows British ships of war to enter the river, and anchor at Paknam; and it is further provided, that any British ship of war conveying to Siam a public functionary accredited by her Majesty's Government to the Court of Bangkok shall be allowed to come up to that city.

The most important Article for our trade, however, is, that the measurement duty hitherto paid by British vessels trading to Bangkok, under the Treaty of 1826, shall be abolished, and British shipping or trade will thenceforth be only subject to the payment of import and export duties on the goods landed or shipped.

On all articles of import the duties shall be 3 per cent., payable at the option of the importer, either in kind or money, calculated on the market value of the goods. Drawback of the full amount of duty shall be allowed upon goods found unsaleable and reexported. To the Treaty are appended six regulations, under which the British trade is to be conducted, and a tariff of duties. This Treaty, so ably and dexterously concluded by Sir John

Bowring, brought about a total change in the whole system of taxation in Siam; it uprooted a great number of privileges and monopolies which had not only been long established, but which were advantageously held by the most influential nobles and the highest functionaries in the State.

The commission to consider and agree on the Treaty was composed of the First Regent, and his brother the Second Regent of the kingdom. Besides these, the King nominated the acting Prime Minister, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The influence of the two latter members, and the indomitable perseverance of the Prime Minister, brought the negotiations to a happy issue; notwithstanding that the two Somdetches, the highest functionaries in the State, had long been the nominal rulers in Siam. The Somdetches defeated Mr. Craufurd's mission in 1822, and Sir James Brooke's in 1851. They were the main cause of the want of success of Captain Burney's Treaty, and of the failure of the Americans, Roberts and Ballestier. In a matter in which these able men failed, Sir John Bowring, by his patient energy-by his adroitness, tact, and discretion, completely succeeded, clearly proving that he does not merit the reproaches which have been so unsparingly cast upon him, as a man eaten up with vanity, and quite destitute of discretion or judgment. So satisfied was the King of Siam with the conduct of Sir John Bowring, that he offered this monomaniac-as he is deemed by Lord Derby-two elephants of any age or size he would prefer, and also two ponies from the royal stables; but as the Plenipotentiary had no means of conveying them from Bangkok, he was obliged gratefully to decline these royal marks of favour. Sir John, however, willingly accepted from the King a bunch of hairs from the tails of white elephants-sacred animals, which had been the cherished possession of this monarch's ancestors. From the personal journal of Sir John, kept between March the 24th and April the 25th, 1855, one may see how anxious the Plenipotentiary was for the conclusion of this Treaty, and how earnest were his endeavours that it should be a complete and perfect work. The volumes of which we have endeavoured to give an analysis, are highly interesting and instructive, and are written in a pleasing and perspicuous style. There is, however, little original matter in them, unless in reference to the Mission and the Treaty. Sir John Bowring has drawn largely on French, Spanish, and Portuguese sources, and has somewhat mercilessly laid under contribution the Lettres Edifiantes and Pallegoix. Nevertheless, the work is most valuable; and full justice has been done to the

subject by the liberal publishers, who have produced a perfect marvel of a book, with fac-similes of seals, curious handwritings, and emblazoned images of the white elephant, and other things sacred to the Siamese.

ART. VII.-Select British Eloquence; embracing the best Speeches entire of the most Eminent Orators of Great Britain for the last Two Centuries. Edited, with Notes, by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, D.D., Professor in Yale College, Newhaven, Connecticut, United States. London: Low. 1852.

Orator fit; Poeta nascitur, is the old saying. We take the liberty of not agreeing with it. We believe that a speaker may be made that any one, with due practice and culture, may learn to speak fluently and correctly before an audience; just as any one, with due practice and culture of a different kind, may learn to write verses. The Greeks and Romans, with whom the faculty of public speaking was almost a necessity of effective citizenship, had, as an important part of their apparatus for the education of young men, a highly perfect system of rhetorical training, by means of which they could positively undertake to impart the required accomplishment in a given time. In Britain, without any such organized system, but by the mere use of the miscellaneous opportunities of practice which our manners and institutions afford, we contrive to have among us and to keep up from year to year a certain number of persons, variously distributed through society, who can and do speak for the rest. We have lawyers, clergymen, country-magistrates, directors of public companies, members of civic corporations, and the like, who can get up without unnecessary trepidation before a considerable body of people, assembled whether for business or festivity, and acquit themselves satisfactorily in a series of connected, agreeable, and well-delivered sentences. In America, according to all accounts, the faculty of public speaking, as being more in requisition for the purposes of citizenship, is still more widely diffused. Nor is the faculty, in this degree to which it may be attained by all, a thing to be despised. Call it only tongue-fence,' and, even under this metaphor, Aristotle himself will supply an argument for it. If it is disgraceful,' says Aristotle, not to be able to protect yourself by your bodily force, it surely, at least, is equally