How Lisbon wooed Siam

The Embassy of Pero Vaz de Siqueira to Siam

(1684-1686)

By Leonor de Seabra

Translated by CC Martins, MP Nunes and

AN Baxter

Published by the University of Macao 

Available at Orchid Books, Bt950

Reviewed by Michael Smithies

Special to The Nation

Here is a real find. We knew about the

Portuguese embassy to King Narai the year

before the first French embassy led by

Chaumont in 1685, but it's remained largely

undocumented. While researching another project in the Portuguese archives in Goa, however, Leonor de Seabra came across the official record of the embassy, which lasted from March to June 1684.

The embassy's purpose was primarily to forestall the French missionary advance in Siam, Tonkin and Cochin-China through the Missions

Etrangeres de Paris (MEP), supported by Louis XIV and the Propaganda Fide in Rome.

It was a temporal territorial dispute. Under the Padroado of 1494 the Portuguese claimed to be, with the Spanish, the sole dispensers of Christianity in the Far East.

The French felt that the Portuguese were incapable of the task, and Rome pussyfooted by

appointing French bishops to lapsed sees while at

the same time giving them jurisdiction over

East Asian geopolitical realities.

The details of the embassy are fascinating.

Phaulkon figures large, and Pero Vaz

de Siqueira was quick to see through his manoeuvres, making himself indispensable yet at the same time placing as many obstacles as he could to the progress of the embassy.

The usual problems arose when the ambassador - a successful Macanese trader who defrayed his own considerable expenditures, and with experience of Japan - insisted on being received in audience wearing shoes and sword.

There were also disputes over the status of the letter he delivered. Was it from the then-prince-regent, who became King Pedro II in September 1683, though this was apparently still not known in Goa by March the following year?

Or did it come from the Viceroy of India in Goa, Count Alvor?

"Constantino Falc?o", considered by the ambassador to "be continually influencing that incapable individual" the 'Phrakalang', quibbled

endlessly, and was forever pointing out that Pero Vaz was allowed courtesies that no one else had been granted before (he was to do the same the following year with the French).

Certainly the entertainment provided as lavish, but this could not disguise the fact that the ambassador decided it was pointless to bring up in public the matter of restricting MEP religious activities in Siam.

Phaulkon, seeking to consolidate his position with the French, would never have broached the proposal with King Narai, who appeared to give his Greek a free hand in most matters. All he could obtain was the guarantee that the French would have no religious jurisdiction over the Portuguese colony in Siam.

Even this was not to last.

This embassy is recorded in minute detail. We are even given a list of the lavish silverware which the King directed to be used at the banquet he hosted in honour of the ambassador, but which he did not attend himself, deputing Phaulkon to act as host in his stead.

There were "over a hundred men servants running back and forth between the Palace and the houses of the Ambassador [with] all the things that have been mentioned."

The presents were continually flowing, one of which a mechanical geegaw of a mobile woman, also given to the French.

There is mention of a forthcoming Siamese embassy to Portugal, which appears to have left very soon after, or even before the embassy of Pero Vaz was over.

This could only be the embassy described in 1999's "A Siamese Embassy Lost in Africa 1686", a work not appearing here in the bibliography.

"The King of Portugal had sent to the king our master a very important embassy … To return the civility … the king named three important mandarins as his ambassadors … We embarked for Goa towards the end of March 1684."

Because of "misadventures" they did not arrive until after the Portuguese fleet had left for Lisbon, and had to wait 11 months in Goa, only to be shipwrecked at Cape Agulhas in January 1686.

But the date: March 1684? This is probably due to confusion. Ok-khun Chamnan's account was only taken down by Tachard in 1688 and undoubtedly the Jesuit made the calendrical calculations. The Siamese probably left in 1684 soon after the departure of Pero Vaz's embassy, but not in March, more likely June or a little later.

This slightly reduced the time spent travelling to Goa - said to have taken "more than five months" - which even Chamnan observed was very long.

There is much to comment on in this remarkable Siqueira document. The translation is sometimes curious, introducing spoken contractions in formal prose, and mistranslating some words, such as "costumes" for "customs").

The chief drawback is in presenting the text by folio number instead of presenting the work as a running narrative, inserting folio numbers where needed.

Space prevents a more detailed analysis, but we must be grateful for what we have. This is an exceptionally important document and adds to the growing number of translated texts relating to the final years of King Narai's long and remarkable reign.