Map to illustrate the Siamese question.

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" appear that he was a man of sound sense, probity and judg" ment-active, practical, and moderate-that certainly reprehen" sible credence, however, secured to the British merchant and to the
" world the port of Penang, the most eligible one at this extre" mity of the straits."
I give two extracts regarding the acquisition of Province
Wellesley:" 15th July, 1800. At this period, Sir GEORGE LEITII, without
" any lengthened negotiations, purchased from the new Baja of
" Kdah for the sum of two thousand Spanish dollars, that tract
" of land on the Peninsula opposite to and outflanking Penang,
" which has since been called Province Wellesley."
" The new treaty which was entered into with the Raja em" braced the same articles as those which were contained in the
" preceding treaties, and the Raja was to receive ten thousand
" dollars per annum so long as he was de facto the ruler of Kidah.
" This treaty was superseded by the treaty of Bangkok and by the
" Raja's losing his government. But his son now receives it,
" although he is a mere Governor appointed by the Court of
" Bangkok over a fourth part of the Kedah country."
Colonel Low thus recounts one attack on Perak:" 1813. The Siamese obliged the Raja of Kedah in this year
" to attack the State of Perak, which then, as it now does, bounded
" Province Wellesley on the South. This was an unprincipled
" and unprovoked aggression. The Kedah forces evacuated the
" country soon after, but not before they had inflicted on it the
" miseries of demibarbarian warfare.
" 25th February, 1814. The Governor-General deprecated the
" undesirable consequences likely to result from the extension of
" Siamese power to the vicinity of Malacca, but as the invading
" force had retreated, no mediation as contemplated became neces"sary. Yet the Kedah Raja, before his invasion of Perak, had
"received from the Penang Government one hundred muskets
" and twenty barrels of gunpowder, and probably on some false
" plea, for the independence of Perak had all along been desidera" ted. The Perak Raija, quite unaware of the aid thus untowardly
" given to his enemy, addressed a letter to the chief authority at
" Penang, which exhibited the profound ignorance which has ever
" characterised the rulers of that petty State. He only asked for
" two ships of war and two thousand troops, one half of these last
" to be Europeans ( one hundred being perhaps the utmost
" strength of the latter at the time in the island). 'I am,' wrote
" this potentate over twenty thousand subjects, 'he who holds the
" 'royal sword and the dragon betel stand and the shell which
" ' came out of the sea which flowed from the hill of S'Gantang.'