Page 195 - A History of Siam

A HISTORT OF SIAM 187

Tai or Mohn, male or female, fearless of the Royal
and and the wealth and
displeasure Laws, seeing pros-
of merchants from shall their
perity foreign lands, give
daughters or granddaughters to be the wives of foreigners,
or or followers of other
English Dutch, Japanese Malays,
and allow them to become converted to
religions, foreign
those are held to be thorns in the side
religions, persons
of the State and enemies of the Realm. be
They may
punished by confiscation of their property, imprisonment
for life, degradation, being made to cut grass for the
or fines of various This is for
Royal elephants, grades.
an to others. Why is this ? Because the
example
father will sow seed and future
(foreign) beget progeny,
and the father and son will the affairs of the Realm
report
in and when became
foreign lands, they known, foreigners
will assail the Realm on and the Buddhist
every side,
will decline and fall into
religion disrepute."
Dutch writers refer more than once to
preparations
made by King Prasat T'ong, during his reign, to subdue
Cambodia, which, as has been seen, had been more or
less since 1618, No record can be found of
independent
an invasion of Cambodia been undertaken
having actually
during this reign, but there is some reason to suppose that
the show of force was sufficient, and that Cambodia
renewed her to Siam. It was to
allegiance probably
celebrate this event that King Prasat T'ong erected a
on the road from to the
temple Ayut'ia P'rabat, design
of which was from the celebrated T'om
copied Angkor
temple in Cambodia,
King Prasat T'ong died on the 8th of August, 1656.
It seems that this man, who had obtained the
strange
throne of Siam and murder, and had
through intrigue
retained it methods of terrorism, was allowed to die
by
in his bed. Not but he even seems to
quietly only this,