all fertile countries had their superfluities, which other nations were desirous of obtaining in exchange for superfluities of their own; that varieties of climate, and soil, and condition, gave to all the means of interchange; that commerce bound remote nations together, and gave them common interests; that commerce is the natural parent and ally of peace; that in the progress of events, questions are always settled by the interference of the warrior with violence and outrage, or by the negotiator in a spirit of amity and good-will; and that commerce was, of all negotiators, the most effectual. No doubt, thoughts like these had been working in the minds of many of the influential Siamese; but it was my business to suggest and to enforce them, and, on more than one occasion, it was no small satisfaction to me to hear from men of the highest station, "What you say is true: the shopkeepers complain they cannot sell, the peasants say they cannot produce; we have only a few, instead of, as in former times, many ships in our river; and matters grow worse, instead of better." On one occasion, the most influential noble in the kingdom said to me, "We must work together; we must put an end to these monopolies; and the blessing of the people will be on your head."

The system of monopoly began by farming spirituous liquors; then tobacco, gaming, oils, torches, leaves for covering roofs, combustibles, timber, condiments, markets, fisheries, mining, hunting-one after another every species of industry was subjected to the ravages of an invader more and more rapacious as he destroyed the very element on which he fed. Chinese

CHINESE RAPACITY.

267

settlers have beaten the Siamese out of the market in the competition for farms. It was said that one Chinese mandarin had obtained possession of ninety different monopolies. And the Chinese, having obtained the farm of a particular article, are merciless in their prosecutions and punishment of all who invade their privilege. In such cases, they have been in the habit of "protecting their rights," as it is called, by their invasions of the domiciles, seizure of the goods and persons of delinquents, who can obtain no redress for any such visitations, inasmuch as the Chinese farmer has invariably behind him the noble through whose influence he obtained the monopoly, and to whom, of course, he paid the market-value. There is no class of men who exercise power in a more arbitrary spirit than the Chinese-to their exactions there are no bounds; and as they are unchecked by those influences which at home place some control upon rapacity, all their bad qualities are exhibited where they are for the most part "birds of passage," and certainly, at the same time, "birds of prey;" for though multitudes of Chinese become permanent settlers in Siam, there is, perhaps, no example of an utter abandonment of the intention of returning to the "flowery" fatherland, of worshipping in the ancestral hall, of performing the religious rites demanded by the manes of their progenitors, and of revisiting the graves of those whom to reverence is the part of a Chinaman's nature, formed by education and habits absolutely despotic, and pervading all classes of society.

Pallegoix gives the following table of the revenues

*I find in Moor's Notices of the Indian Archipelago (1837) an esti mate of Siamese revenues, which, except in a few instances, is wholly discordant from that furnished by Pallegoix; but Moor's information must have been singularly imperfect, as I observe he gives no credit for some of the most productive sources of income-such as compositions for personal labour, capitation-tax paid by Chinese, &c. He estimates the tax on rice and paddy to be only 862,350 ticals, instead of 2,000,000; pepper, 23,200, instead of 400,000. But Moor's tables are so obviously full of errors, that I notice them merely to prevent their being received as authority.

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I do not find a return of the amounts received by the Treasury for fines and confiscations. In almost all cases, a portion of the fine is ordered to be appropriated to the King. Confiscations often take place on a large scale, but the receipts from this source must always be capricious and uncertain.

Sundry local functionaries are charged with the collection in their district of the public taxes, and pay them to the phra xajot, the chief of the King's pages, through whom they are transferred to the Treasury, which provides, under the King's orders, for the expenses of the State. of the State. There are about eight thousand bonzes in the royal pagodas who are provided for by the King's revenue, which is also charged with military and marine expenses, and all public works throughout the kingdom.

I

CHAPTER X.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

FIND in several authors an opinion that the Siamese language is a connecting link between the Chinese, the Sanskrit, the Pali, and their derivatives, and even with the Polynesian dialects. I see no ground for such a theory. The introduction of a small number of words from India and the Indian Archipelago is easily explained; but the broad general deductions which are drawn from a few resemblances are quite unwarrantable, and the results of very imperfect knowledge. The character and construction of the language are peculiar: tradition refers its origin to the Laos country, the idiom of which it resembles in many particulars; but the Siamese has a distinct type of its own.

Mr. Jones published, at Bangkok,* some short notices of the Siamese grammar. He represents the roots of the language to be few, all monosyllabic, and generally confined to visible objects. The pitch of the voice gives various meanings to the same word. He thinks that the polysyllabic words in the language are all of foreign origin. Nouns are not susceptible of declension, nor verbs of conjugation. Auxiliary

* Brief Grammatical Notices of the Siamese Language, with an Appendix. By J. Taylor Jones. Bangkok: Printed at the Mission Press. 1842.