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A Spanish Sidelight on “Siamese” White and Francis Davenport

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

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Extract

A brief but interesting glimpse of Samuel White, the Shāhbandar of Mergui, and of his secretary Francis Davenport, is afforded in the account of a Spanish friar who saw them twice in 1687, travelled with them to Madras after their flight from Mergui, and claimed to have converted Davenport to Catholicism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1964

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References

1. Relación del P. Antonio de Santo Domingo, su viaje a las islas de Nicobar y su regreso a las Islas Filipinos, ed. Lorenzo Pérez, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, XI (1918), 8096.Google Scholar

2. Gabriel de Cumzeláequi

3. The background to all this is discussed in Collis, M., Siamese White (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Anderson, J., English Intercourse with Siam (London, 1890)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, E. W., Adventurers in Siam in the Seventeenth Century (London, Royal 'Asiatic Society, 1940).Google Scholar

4. That is, with the name of the renowned Spanish Franciscan saint. Spanish names were popular with the Indians of the Philippines and fray Antonio later reports that they became so with the Nicobar islanders among whom he lived (Relación, p. 14).Google Scholar

5. One wonders if this is the execution which was later held against White as an act of murder (Collis, , 108, 117). The date for the execution is given in Collis as January; in the friar's account it seems to have happened in March, though this might be due to a confusion in his mind; he may well have witnessed the execution in January on his way up to Ayuthia.Google Scholar