Account: Sir John Bowring on King Mongkut of Siam

Sir John Bowring met with King Mongkut and later described the Thai monarch.

Sir John Bowring took a career overseas as a diplomat from 1849. He started as a Consul in in China until being appointed as Governor of Hong Kong in 1854 until 1859. During his tenure he oversaw the Second Opium War and negotiations for a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with Siam. He established good relations with King Mongkut and described the Siamese monarch’s rise and character.

An obstinate and ignorant illegitimate son had succeeded to the throne; but on his death the nobility clamored for the recognition of the legitimate descendant, a remarkable man, who had retired from public life, and made his person sacred by becoming a Buddhist priest, and withdrawing to a convent, where for 11 years he devoted himself to the study of Sanskrit, Pali, and other Oriental tongues. He learned Latin from the French Catholic Missionaries, at whose head was Bishop Pallegoix, the author of the Thai dictionary and grammar, and of one of the best accounts of Siam; and English from the American Missionaries, who for many years had a Protestant Propaganda in Siam, where if truth be told, they labored with little success.

The new King who was a most enlightened, sagacious, and enquiring man, had been a correspondent of mine and received in an amiable spirit the overtures I made him…

Bibliography:

Bowring, Lewin. Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1877