Siamese and English Records of the Siamese Embassy to England in 1857–1858/Foreword
Foreword
Some time ago, Princess Traidos and Princess Amoradat requested the Royal Institute to select and edit a book for distribution at the cremation of their father Nai P'in T'ep Chalœm Bunnag, which, by Royal permission, will take place at Vat T'epsirin in March 1928. I then remembered a collection of records recently received from London and dealing with the Embassy sent to England by King Mongkut in 1857, under the leadership of P’ya Montri Suriyayvongs (Jum Bunnag). These records are extracts from the English newspapers (such as the Times, the Illustrated London News, the Court Journal, etc.) kept in the library of the India Office, — they give interesting comments on the reception of the Siamese ambassadors and their stay in England.
The cremation will certainly be attended by a fair number of Siamese and Europeans conversant with the English language, and affords thus an excellent opportunity for printing and distributing these records. After consulting H. H. Prince Traidos, who approved of the publication, I entrusted Prof. G. Cœdés, General Secretary of the Royal Institute, with the task of selecting and editing the most interesting extracts, and I asked Mr. L. J. Robbins, B. A., English teacher at the Vajiravudh College, who has a good knowledge of Siamese, to translate into English a paper on "Siamese embassies to Europe" which I have published some years ago.
But there will also be present at the cremation many Siamese who are not conversant with the English language, and I thought it would be suitable to have also a Siamese text published in the same volume. For that purpose, I have selected the records of the Siamese embassy written by Mom Rajot'ay, together with my own remarks and explanations, — so that this volume contains all the records and documents on that embassy which are now available.
The three sets of records published in this volume are very different from each other, and each has peculiar features which I will try to explain.
1)The report of Mom Rajot'ay, printed as the first part of this book, is an official report. It is very well written, and is peculiar in this way: the author has succeeded in his endeavours to give his countrymen an exact idea of such novelties as the railway, the telegraph, and even the circus, which were absolutely unknown in Siam and which had never been seen by himself before.
2)The "Voyage to London" which forms the second part of this volume is a very good piece of poetry; so good that some persons are inclined to think that its real author is Sunt'orn P'u. But this is impossible, since that famous poet died in 1855, two years before the date of the Embassy. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of the "Voyage to London" is that every time the author has to use an English name oran English word, he always succeeds in finding an appropriate Siamese word to rhyme with.
3)The English extracts which form the last part of this book are not very different in substance from Mom Rajot'ay's records. One of their interesting features is that they give the English text of the address read by the First Ambassador at the Royal Audience, and also the reply of H. M. Queen Victoria. The chief peculiarity of these comments lies in the fact that the English journalists of that time, being not well acquainted with Siam and the Siamese, made all sorts of funny mistakes about Siam and the personalities of the Siamese ambassadors, and published many amusing but unfounded pieces of gossip, which were subsequently denied by better informed papers (see p. 36), or even by the Court (p. 70).
I trust that this book will be read with pleasure by all those who will receive it.
Damrong
Royal Institute, 7 February 1928.