The favour of the king was for a time withdrawn by reason of an
incident the character of which was vague to the missionaries at
the time. Later the cause of the estrangement was discovered to be
a letter which appeared in an English journal at Straits Settlement
in October, 1854. The offending letter not only misrepresented some
acts of the government but calumniated the character of the king,
and insinuated that he was held in low esteem by the missionaries
as well as by other foreigners. For some reason the king ascribed
the authorship of this letter to a missionary who had recently
passed through Singapore; and among his officials, as learned
later, he threatened to expel the missionaries except Dr. Bradley
and Dr. House.
The first warning of royal displeasure was the arrest of the
Siamese teachers on the fictitious charge of teaching the sacred
language to foreigners. Then the missionary ladies, presenting
themselves at the palace gate as usual for admission to teach
their classes, were ignored. The missionaries, essaying to go out
to the sea coast for recuperation learned that a decree had been
issued to limit their movements; but inquiry received only evasive
explanations. Finally the king sent a demand that the missionaries
collectively should sign a paper disclaiming authorship of the
letter and denying in toto its imputation; this demand was made
before they had seen the letter, but it gave them an understanding
of the trouble.
After consultation they declined to assent to this demand,
partly because it might be construed as an acknowledgment of
responsibility, and partly because they considered it impolitic
to make a general defense of the government, some of whose
affairs they did not fully approve. However, they drew up a paper
denying their complicity in the publication and reaffirming their
friendship towards the king. After several months the teachers were
allowed to return to the mission, but with an admonition against
giving out “false information lest the missionaries put it in their
letters and send it out of the country”; the decree of restriction,
however, continued in force for some time. The servants, returning
to the mission compound, reported the nature of the examination to
which they had been subjected by the king, and Dr. House records
the following: “Being asked which missionaries he visited in his
work, one replied ‘Maw House.’ ‘Well,’ said the king, ‘Maw House is
good hearted, affable and good humoured,’ and thus was evidently
satisfied that the unfavourable reports could not be laid to the
teachers.”
Dr. House quietly pursued an inquiry into this matter, and after
some months came to the conclusion that the instigator, if not
the actual writer of the letter, was a certain Captain Trail,
commander of one of the king’s trading vessels. It seems that while
in Singapore port, one night at eleven o’clock the captain fired a
salute in honour of a ball on shore given by a friend. The British
consul complained to his superior against the alarm caused by the
firing, and his government forwarded the complaint to Bangkok. The
captain was arrested and cast into a native gaol, which was crowded
with low class prisoners, and was there for several days before his
friends learned of the case. Some of the missionaries interceded
for him and secured his release. When he left Bangkok he threatened
to get even with the government for his treatment, and there was
good reason to suppose that the letter was the means of revenge he
took.
This entry in Dr. House’s journal was annotated in pencil several
years afterwards, adding “the letter was doubtless gotten up
between Josephs (the Armenian merchant) and Capt. Eames, a friend
of Captain Trail, with the knowledge of the prime minister, who
was piqued at the king, and whose knowledge of the state affairs
had given the insinuations in the letter which aroused the king’s
hostility.” Fortunately, time convinced the king of the total
innocence of all the missionaries and in due time the cloud of
disfavour vanished.