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of which friendly relations were once more established. These continued unabated for some years, the Dutch agent in 1685 being the first foreigner ever admitted to the presence of the King. In 1706, however, a differ- ence arose once more, and this time the Dutch were obliged to ask for such terms as the Siamese were dis- posed to grant to them. Subsequently the trade between the Hollanders and Siam languished and almost ceased. In 1740 an effort was made to restore the former state of things, the King of Siam making friendly overtures to the Dutch, but the negotiations led to nothing, and so completely did the intercourse between the Dutch and the Siamese cease that when Bowring visited Bangkok in 1857, he found no trace remaining there to show that the connection, which had lasted for more than a century, had ever existed.

A remarkable figure in the history of Siamese relations with the West is that of Constantine Phaulkon, or Fal- con, a Greek of Cephalonia, who ran away to England in about 1640, when he was a mere child, and afterwards sailed for the Indies in one of Old John Company's ships. Later, having acquired a vessel of his own, he was wrecked near the mouth of the Menam, passed some years in Siam, and learned the language of the country. Sailing from Siam, he had the misfortune to be again wrecked on the coast of Malabar, his whole ship's com- pany perishing, while he alone escaped, carrying with him a sum of 2,000 crowns. Naked and in a sorry plight, he was roaming the shores upon which he had been cast, when he lighted upon another shipwrecked mariner,