Map to illustrate the Siamese question.

-50--
Malay, would appear to him to exhaust his means of seeking
redress. An adverse reply would be conclusive of the futility
of further representations on the matter.
It was not till 1821 that the Siamese found leisure to attend
to Kedah, but then the attack was sudden, the war short but
sanguinary, and the submission that has resulted very complete.
The Malays of Kedah more than once, at short intervals
after their conquest, made an effort to regain their independence, and though on one occasion they drove out the invaders
and carried the war into Senggira, they were not long able to
prevail against their too powerfull enemy.
As I said in the opening, the supremacy of the Siamese in
Kedah to-day is absolute and uncontested. Whether the
influence of the Court of Bangkok has tended to ameliorate the
condition of the Malays of Kedah, to raise them in the social
scale, to render the country prosperous and the people happy,
is another question on which I shall say a few words later.
While Mr. ANDERSON considered, and was trying to prove
that Kedah had been deceived by the Indian Government, and
had fallen a prey to a relentless enemy, who, unprovoked, had
sought a means of reducing the country under its sway,
another officer took an opposite view of the case, and, regarding
Kedah as a rebel and traitor to its lawful sovereign, justified
the proceedings of Siam and blamed the Indian Government
for any countenance, support, or protection given to the Rdja
of Kedah or his family.
This officer was Captain Low (afterwards Colonel Low),
Superintendent of Province Wellesley, and I could have
wished to have here added his views on the subject, if only to
shew both sides. But Colonel Low has not written any connected article on this question, what he says appearing, with
many other matters, in a series of papers, to which I have
already referred, entitled "The Origin and Progress of the
British Colonies in the Straits of Malacca."* Moreover, Colonel
* Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. iii., page 599, and vol.
iv., pages 25, 119, and 3(E0.