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

AMEIUGAN DIPLOMATS IN SOUTHEAST ASJA
107
In some respects they are equal to the Japanese and in most
respects ahead of the Chinese, in the acceptance of approved
foreign ideas of progress, but they lack apparently ambition,
and the power of action and achievement to carry out plans
and promises.
In a despatch refuting some of the wilder stories about King Chulalongkorn•s
private life that appeared in the American press at the time of
the king's first European tour, Barrett had good words for the king, the
crown prince, and the queen regent. Even the king's bodyguard were
"quite smart in appearance for Orientals." "The Government," be
concluded, "as well as the eli mate, also may have its serious faults but
those do not need to be discussed here. "261
Even Hamilton King, a model diplomat who seldom said anything
that could offend anyone, occasionally applied the standard of"approved
foreign ideas of progress" and found the Thai wanting. In recommending
a stratagem of dubious justice by which the United States could recover
the loss occasioned by a clerical error in the Cheek case, King justified
his position on tbe grounds that "the moral code of the Orient and the
moral code of the Occident resemble each other in name."262 And when
a revolt broke out in northern Siam in 1902, King reported to Washington
on the pacification measures of the Thai Government :26 3
Little Siam is doing all she