174 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN, 



It should not be admitted, because England, Holland, or Spain may hold an insignificant 

 part of a kingdom or province, that their lawful sovereignty should extend by consequence over 

 the whole country. And so in regard to Borneo and Sumatra ; have we not the same right to 

 negotiate with the native princes as England and Holland claim to have ? 



But, deferring for the present) any further remarks upon those islands, let us speak of Siam, 

 Cambodia, Cochin China, and Formosa — the three former independent sovereignties, and the 

 latter a nominal dependency of China. 



A treaty with Siam has recently been arranged, and it may not be out of place here to refer 

 briefly to the resources of that country, which, unlike China, has been rather inclined to encour- 

 age foreign commerce, though certainly under restrictive regulations. The government of Siam 

 has at this day many well-equipped ships, and other square-rigged vessels, which trade to the 

 neighboring countries. I met one ship at Ceylon, and two at Hong Kong, and in the course of 

 time we may expect to see the Siamese flag flying in our own waters. 



The soil of Siam is exceedingly fertile, producing bountifully and in great perfection all 

 those fruits of the earth which are common to intertropical latitudes. 



The principal staples, however, are sugar and rice ; but cotton, tea, coffee, tobacco, indigo, 

 pepper, and various other valuable products, are grown with but little labor, as also the most 

 delicious fruits. 



Various descriptions of drugs, ivory, beautiful fancy woods, and teak timber, are exported in 

 vessels chiefly belonging to the Siamese king and nobles, who monopolize all the foreign trade, 

 employing vessels mostly built and equipped after the European fashion ; and in this respect 

 the Siamese are in advance of the people of China, who still adhere to their misshapen, unwieldy 

 junks, which are incapable of making any way against the prevailing monsoons, and they rarely, 

 if ever, venture the attempt. 



Cambodia and Cochin China (the latter, if not both, sometimes called by the general name 

 of Annam*) are the intermediate kingdoms between Siam and China proper ; and though 

 capable of sustaining by their products and other resources a flourishing commerce with 

 strangers, have little trade beyond a limited intercourse with the ports of Siam, Singapore, and 

 those of China. Though some feeble attempts have heretofore been made by England and 

 France to establish a friendly understanding with these countries, they have met with indifferent 

 success, and probably by reason of injudicious diplomacy ; and, to make matters worse, two 

 French frigates, in 1847, came into armed collision with the authorities at Touron bay, by 

 which the native flotilla was destroyed, with the loss of the greater number of their crews ; 

 and though Sir John Davis, then governor of Hong Kong, visited, with two British ships of 

 war, the same place shortly after the occurrence of this event, in the hope of effecting for 

 England some friendly arrangement with the Annamese government, he was obliged, after a 

 disagreeable and perplexing delay, to depart without being admitted to an audience, or allowed 

 even to visit Hue, the capital. 



Now, the evident causes of the failures to bring these prejudiced and conceited people into any 

 terms promising useful results, may be chiefly ascribed to the course of mistaken policy pur- 

 sued by the western powers, whose agents invariably approach them as superiors, demanding 

 nolens volens, and with little ceremony, concessions in the way of trade, the free exercise of 

 religion, &c, &c; of the advantages or disadvantages, or ultimate bearing and consequences of 



e Sir John Davis, in his account of China, remarks : "It might teas well if the latter unmeaning designation, (Cochin 

 China,) the authority for which is very obscure, were abandoned, and the true name, Annam, adopted. 



