Ron van Maanen
Thanks to the fact that Google books digitized old and rare books which are not or hardly available for further research this problem is slowly solved. Accounts of travellers through Asia gives us very valuable information although ‘coloured’ by their own opinions.
p. 406: “A little below Bang-kok the government has erected dockyards, which are described as being commodious, and, for that country, magnificent. There are one or two dry docks. Here have been built a few fine ships, which have been added to the King of Siam's navy. They were constructed under the immediate direction of an English shipwright. Unless the
p. 407: capricious government have recently altered its regulations, vessels of all nations that may have met with damage at sea are thoroughly and cheaply repaired in the dock-yards. The whole establishment has been described as excellent, and as invaluable to vessels meeting with misfortunes in the stormy seas of China. In the hands of a European power the docks would become of immense importance, and render a very high annual revenue. The shipwrights, carpenters, and labourers employed were kept upon regular pay, and there was always plenty of work for them: for what with their own vessels and the numberless Chinese and other junks that traded to and fro, they seldom passed a day without some kind of job. The money for these repairs and the dock charges were all paid into the government treasury.
In the year 1840, the king possessed five or six good sized ships, built and rigged in our manner. One of these vessels carried forty guns, but the calibre is not mentioned. Oddly enough they bore English names, as the “Caledonia” “Conqueror” &c, an Englishman having been requested to name them at their launching. The “Conqueror” was soon lost in a typhoon, and the "Caledonia" soon afterwards nearly shared the same fate. If this infant navy were
p. 408: properly manned and cared for, it might help to exterminate those nests of pirates always to be found among the islands and inlets of this very imperfectly-explored gulf, in which there are many creeks and deep inlets never seen by a European eye. But the Siamese do not make good sailors, and the Malays, by whom their vessels are principally manned, are not, in their hands, very amenable to discipline. Moreover, the Siamese officers on board are apt to be either exceedingly great cowards, or as obstinate as they are ignorant. Being nearly always on bad terms with their neighbours the Cochin - Chinese, the royal fleet is often employed in cruising against that enemy. The combats which take place are described as ludicrous in the extreme. They fire shotted guns, the balls of which fall half a mile or more short of the mark; neither will approach the other unless he can see that he is by very far the stronger, and at the slightest accident they haul their wind or sheer off. In 1840, the quarrel with the court of Anam being unusually violent, his Siamese majesty sent out the “Caledonia” to cruise and wreak vengeance. This ship was at the time commanded by an English captain, who had two or three English officers under him. But, being bent upon trade and profit, as well as war and revenge, the king put a great cargo of sugar on board his man-of-war, and this obliged the captain to land all his between-deck guns, and some of the guns of the upper tier. Hereby the ship lost her trim. The crew was most motley, consisting of Malays, Manillamen, Gentoos, Malabars, a few Arabs, and a sprinkling of Siamese. The Malays were smart seamen, but the rest could no more distinguish one rope from another than they could help being mortally sea-sick. A body of marines had been shipped - such marines as only a semi-barbarous country could furnish. They were utterly ignorant of war and of real discipline, but having smart dresses, and tolerably good muskets and side-arms, and being drilled to stand straight and to keep line and step, they cut a pretty good figure on board until they got out to sea, and the vessel began to roll or pitch. Then these royal marines were to be looked for in the scuppers, or behind the cook's galley, the muskets of the sentries strewing the decks. No feat of arms was performed, no attack on the Cochin-Chinese attempted. In truth, the
p. 409: English officers were averse to making any captures, as they knew the horrible condition of slavery to which their prisoners would be reduced in Siam. The cruise, however, was not altogether a tame one. Off the coast of Kamboja they were caught by a terrific storm, the ship sprang a leak, the sugar was all thrown overboard or melted, or mixed with salt water and entirely spoiled, and the “Caledonia” ran back to the Menam, and made for the dockyards at Bang-kok, which she did not reach without great difficulty and danger.”
Source
Miss (Julia) Corner. China. Pictorial, descriptive, and historical with some account of Ava and the Burmese, Siam and Anam. London, 1853.
