Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV. DIPLOMATIC AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS OF WESTERN NATIONS WITH SLAM. I.--Portuguese Missions. rpHE Portuguese may be called the discoverers, or re-discoverers, of Siam; but we are imperfectly informed as to the relations which the great Lusitanian adventurers had with the Siamese, though we have abundant evidence that-no other European nation established so early an intercourse, obtained so strong a hold, or has left so many traces behind it in Siam, as the. Portuguese. Their purposes mingled the conquest of territory with the propagation of the Catholic faith; but I do not find in the Siamese annals any record 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. The anticipations of poetry have not been realized as regards the influence of Lusitanian prowess upon the futurity of the Siamese dominions. "Time was," the King of Siam said to me in the presence of hundreds of prostrate nobles, --" time was when we considered Portugal as the greatest country in the world; but yours is the country to which we must now look, and it is your alliance we desire to obtain." The vicissitudes of nations are melanchply records; and I was often oppressed with sadness when, in the wretched and ignoble races, many of which still bear illustrious names, I looked upon the descendants of those who accompanied the Albuquerques, the Da Gamas, the De Castros, and the Pachecos, and other heroes of epic song, in their days of triumph, --days in which Prom Western Lusitania passing o'er, Through distant oceans never crossed before, They left behind them Taprobana'a shore, And in remotest regions kingdoms founded, Thro' which the glories of their names resounded.f There...