The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

74 Benjamin A. Batson
"noble work" and added, incorrectly as it turned out:I 40
On his return to the United States, that government will
doubtless advance Mr. Sickels to positions of still greater
honor and usefulness for honest and faithful service rendered
them in this country.
In a letter to the editor of the paper Sickels bade a bitter farewell:
As you remark, "Public servants a~e not always appreciated
by those whom they have assiduously served," but I am
confident that the time is not far distant when our Consular
service will be established upon a more equitable and creditable
basis.
Months before Sickels' departure, General John A. Halderman bad
arrived to take over the Bangkok Cons4late.
Halderman's birth date is
given variously as 1833, 1836, or 1838, and the place as Kentucky or
Missouri.
Halderman bad been active in Kansas politics and bad been
in the Union Army, winning a citation for "conspicuous gallantry" and
rising to the rank of major-general.
acquired a law degree.
At some point in his career he had
When appointed in 1880 he had never been in
Bangkok; before his departure he went to see General Grarit, ''who
140) Siam Weeldy Advertiser, January 15, 1881. Sickels subsequently claimed
that the Thai Government had wanted to employ him as Thai Consul to the
United States, but that the British Consul-General Palgrave, with whom
Sickels had had several disagreements, had blocked the appointment
(Bangkok Despatches, January 30, 1881, and December 12, 1880.) In 1881
Issac T. Smith was appointed Thai Consul in New York,
Smith, 70 years old
and a past president of the Metropolitan Savings Bank, was said to have been
recommended by Samuel J. Smith, the editor of the Siam Weekly Advertiser.
(Samuel Smith bad been educated in the United States and for a time connec·
ted with the American Baptist mission, but had originally come from Burma
and was said to be a British subject-McFarland, Historical Sketch, pp. 27, 32·
33.) It was reported that Issac Smith had asked to be made ambassador to the
United States (although the United States itself had no ambassadors until
1893), which drew from Halderman the sardonic comment: "ad astra per
aspera." (Bangkok Despatches, August 10, 1881, and September 13, 1881.)