I am very pleased indeed with this lot of letter and dispatches....There
are of course, some Philistines who have shown by their skeptical
smiles that they doubt your report of having been invited to
tea with Queen Victoria, the truth of which I and the senior
members of the nobility have never entertained the least doubt,
for we have some knowledge of English manners and customs. We
feel assured that the news concerning the activities of your
Embassy cannot be embroided with lies as had been done in the
case of the Embassy to Peking, for the simple reason that all
matters of interest are now reported in the newspapers, with
more details than are usually described in letters....but there
is one small matter that worries me. I hear that you made a statement
that the First King (*) had 1000 soldiers under his command while
the Second King had only 500. As this statement has not been
made quite in accordance with fact, would not people there accuse
you of telling lies? As a matter of fact, I only have 800 soldiers
under the command of Phra Bahol, another 400 in the "Bayonetted-Rifles"
Royal Guards and only some 300 more raw recruits. Does not the
Second King have as many as 600 or 700 Annamite mercenaries and
over 2000 new recruits? Do you know that it is common talk of
the town that the Second King has more military strength in the
country than any other person, all of whom are nothing but names,
and that His Majesty, the Second King, Prince Chao Fa Israphongse
and His Majesty's children are the only hope of the people?
A great number of Englishmen
have been and are residing in this country. They seem to have
an accurate knowledge of everything that is to be known here,
but it is rather regrettable that they still retain a fixed idea
regarding four phenomena characteristic of this country. The
four unchanging phenomena, according to them, are that the river
running through Bangkok has no other name but "Menam",
that three-quarters of the houses in Bangkok are built on the
water, only one-quarter being built on dry land, that nine parts
out of ten of the local population are Chinese, and that the
First King is a decrepit old man, so weak and thin and stupid
as to be entirely incapable of conducting any official business.
The only reason why he ever became King at all was that he happened
to be elder brother to the Second King, who is actually at the
head of affairs, and by whom both the present Treaty with Great
Britain and the Embassy to that country was originated. The First
King is really so ancient that his power of speech is now restricted
to only "oh's" and "ah's", punctuated by
meaningless nods of the head. Whenever he is called upon to receive
foreign guests, the Second King must always be behind his back,
to tell him what to say to them. The Second King, on the other
hand, is a strong young man who delights in riding either a great
tusker elephant in use, or a stallion over five soks high.
His Majesty shoots every day, loves all things military, is so
very learned and so full of culture as to become the central
figure surrounded by worshipping pundits and the intelligensia.
The Second King is also a ladies' man, greatly beloved by his
wives and children, whom he treats with all possible kindness,
the wives being headed by Princess Kleep who is officially Her
Majesty the Queen.
Are these things not well
known in both the Thai and Laos countries, and also in China,
England and the various European countries? These sentiments
have been in existence since I was at an age younger than what
the Second King is at present. I came to the throne when my age
was four years less than the Second King's present age, but I
was then already alleged to be old. The Second King is now more
than three years older than I was, when I came to the throne,
but people still say that he is a young man. He cannot even make
a chance visit to any provincial town without being offered the
daughters of governors or officials. He went to Saraburi and
came back with a daughter of the Deputy Governor, he went to
Nakorn Rajsima and came back with nine or ten Lao wives, he went
to Panas Nikom and came back with a daughter of another Deputy
Governor, and after his trip to Rajburi in the sixth month last,
he returned with another wife -- I have not been able to discover
the identity of her father.
As for me, I am always
looked upon as an old man wherever I go. No one has ever presented
me with his daughter, and I always have to return home empty-handed,
on account of my being an ancient relic. Although my hair is
getting thin, I am not really bald, and whatever hair there is
left to me is naturally black, without the aid of hair-dyes,
but people looking at me from a distance always insist that I
am completely bald. I have even gone to the expense of buying
myself a riding cap, and have taken pains to go out riding wearing
it, with the hope of creating an impression of youthfulness.
I was a failure; people still maintain that I am old and still
refuse to give me their daughters. In this respect I cannot compete
even with you, Sarapeth! I was sitting in the throne room one
day when I made a casual remark that I was only three years and
eleven months older than the Second King. Somebody there, I forget
who it was, I cannot recollect whether it was Phya Prasiddhi
Suphakarn or someone else, said "Oh! Oh! I thought you were
much older than that!" This remark showed how much older
than the Second people thought I was, as much as Phya Sri Suriwongse
is twelve years older than you are, Phya Montri Suriwongse.
Some other people, like
Laa the Chinaman, even have a tendency to believe that I am not
a son of Queen Suriyendra at all, but a motherless orphan whom
the Queen had adopted out of kindness; the proof of this is to
be found in the fact that I have made no contribution to her
reconstruction of Wat Hongse. These false impressions have been
going on for a long time now; no one has ever been able to rectify
them, not even in Bangkok itself. If you, who are abroad, tell
the truth, you will not be believed, since people have tried
to make things sound otherwise by writing to the papers that
the government of this country is carried on by the brains and
influence of the Second King alone, the First King being aged
to the point of imbecility.
Have you not been a little
careless in your speech, in making an understatement of the King's
military strength, which is in reality much greater than that
of the First King? I have an uneasy feeling that people abroad
might say that the Siamese Ambassadors are nothing but liars,
and I cannot help thinking that the question put to you on the
subject by Queen Victoria was a leading one....
