472 Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

In Siam they have feveral ways in punifhing criminals with death, for theft andother fuch like peccadilloes. Beheading is the common way. For rebellion or mutinythey are ripped up alive, and their guts and entrails taken out, and their carcafes wovenup in a twig cafe, and tied up to a flake for vultures and other voracious fowls, or dogsto feed on. I faw eighteen one morning going to be executed fo for mutiny. Theywere each put on a triangular feat, with their necks and hands in wooden fetters, andcarried by three flaves in chains through the flreets to the place of execution, but theylooked as if they had been almoft ftarved in prifon, for they were very meagre. Somewere weeping, others joyful that they were near the end of a miferable life.

For treafon and murder, the elephant is the executioner. The condemned perfonis made fafl to a flake driven into the ground for the purpofe, and the elephant isbrought to view him, and goes twice or thrice round him, and when the elephant’skeeper fpeaks to the monflrous executioner, he twines his trunk round the perlon andflake, and pulling the flake from the ground with great violence, toffes the man and theflake into the air, and in coming down, receives him on his teeth, and fhaking him offagain, puts one of his fore-feet on the carcafe, and fqueezes it flat.

In anno 1717, the King of Siam made war on his neighbour of Cambodia , and in-vaded his country with an army of 50,000 by land, and 20,000 by fea, and committedthe care of his armies to his barkalong, a Chinefe, altogether unacquainted with war.The China -man accepted of the charge with much relu&ancy, but the King would notbe denied. The war proved unfuccefsful; but I will leave the particulars till I treat ofCambodia, and return to Siam , where I had fome difficulties to meet with.

In anno 1719, I went thither with a cargo to difpofe of, expelling to trade on thefooting of the old treaty concluded at London with the King of England and the Kingof Siam ’s ambaflador, in anno 1684; but, on my arrival, I found that Mr. Collet,governor of Fort St. George, had cancelled that agreement by his ambaflador Powny,as I have already obferved ; and the new conditions being too hard for me to ftand to,

I folicited for liberty to depart again with my fhip and cargo, which I could not obtainin lefs than four months.

Collet’s attorney at the court of Siam was a Perfian by birth, but had come to Siam with his father when very young, and had remained about 40 years at Siam . He w r as ascomplete a rafcal as Collet could have found for his villainous purpofes ; for by falf einformations to the King he had! brought many honefl men into trouble, and fometreafure into the King’s coffers.

When I underflood that he was the remora that had put a flop to my commerce,

I tried if I could remove him by large prefents, but all to no purpofe, for if I traded,it mull be on the fcheme laid down by Collet, by the negotiation of Powny, who keptone Collifon as his refident at Siam , to confult and inform the Perfian of the belt methodsto ruin the Englifh traders that had not Collet’s letters of protection.

This Perfian (whofe name was Oia Sennerat) and I, were difcourfing one day °*my affairs in the Induftan language, which is the eflablifhed language fpoken in jh eMogul’s large dominions, and, among other things, I was laying down to him the diffi-culties that might attend the King of Siam ’s trade, carried on from Merjee to 1 01 "tSt. George, becaufe if the reft of the Englifh colonies were forbid trading with Siam ,they had juft caufe to forbid his fubjects to trade to Fort St. George, or any wh creelfe, and that other troubles might arife to the King’s affairs, by thus impofing on theKing, who was ignorant of the confequences that might follow in breaking the agc^ e 'ment made In England, without fo much as once giving warning to the Englifh colo nieSof other parts of India . 2 He