No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Imperial diplomacy: the French Montigny Mission of 1856–57
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2022
Abstract
In 1856–7 the French diplomat Charles de Montigny visited the three countries of Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam, hoping to establish some form of formal relations with all three. While he was able to sign a full diplomatic and commercial treaty in Bangkok, his negotiations with the Cambodian and Vietnamese rulers were largely fruitless. Even so, Montigny's visit prepared the ground for future French intervention and can be considered as the beginning of French implantation in Southeast Asia. Yet this article argues that his mission must be understood not as an episode of “gunboat diplomacy” resulting in “unequal treaties”, but rather as an example of largely non-coercive diplomacy occurring within an imperial framework.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society
References
1 J. Cady, The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia (Ithaca, 1954) is still a good treatment of this period. The most detailed account in English is Neon Snidvongs, ‘The Developement [sic] of Siamese Relations with Britain and France in the Reign of Maha Mongkut, 1851–1868’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, 1961), Chapter IX.
2 This point is made explicitly in a November 1855 letter from the Minister of the Navy to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in H. Cordier, La politique coloniale de la France au début du Second Empire (Indo-Chine, 1852–1858) (Leiden, 1911), p. 35 (downloaded from gallica.bnf.fr; henceforth all books from this source will be indicated by ‘Gallica’).
3 An account of the acquisition of the Marquesas and Society Islands in the 1840s is in F. Guizot, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de mon temps, vol. 7 (Paris, 1865), Chapter 11 (Gallica); see pp. 467ff. for the original government documents.
4 Guizot's comments on French commitments are in an undated archival document, quoted in A. Septans, Les commencements de l'Indo-Chine Française d'après les archives du Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, les mémoires ou relations du temps (Paris, 1887), p. 128 (Gallica). Tahiti and the surrounding islands were “low-hanging fruit” which France could acquire with minimum effort—having lost out to the British in New Zealand—and only a few squawks of protests from London. Guizot, Mémoires, pp. 44–6, discusses their strategic significance.
5 For examples of missionary pressure on the government, see Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 14–16 and 36–7. Guizot spoke in the National Assembly of France's potential role as protector of Catholicism at least as early as 1844 (Mémoires, p. 79).
6 Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 28–34. C. Meyniard, Le Second Empire en Indo-Chine (Siam-Cambodge-Annam) (Paris, 1891), pp. 101–19 (Gallica), provides a detailed biography of Montigny.
7 Correspondence regarding the deployment of ships is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 29–31, 35–6. Montigny claimed that the Siamese had expressed doubts to local missionaries as to whether France actually had a navy, having never seen any of their ships (p. 94, quoting Montigny's 18 May 1856 letter to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs).
8 See Tarling, N., ‘Harry Parkes’ negotiations in Bangkok in 1856’, Journal of the Siam Society LIII, 2 (1965), pp. 153–80Google Scholar, and ‘The mission of Sir John Bowring to Siam’, Journal of the Siam Society L, 2 (1962), pp. 91–118.
9 The two sets of instructions from Paris—one focused on commercial issues and one on political and religious matters—are in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 38–51, 53–6.
10 The incident under Rama III is found in Phratchaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin chabap Ho Samut haeng Chat: Ratchakan thi 3 Phrabat Somdet Phranangklao Čhaoyuhua Ratchakan thi 4 Phrabat Somdet Phračhomklao Čhaoyuhua [Royal Chronicles of the Bangkok Dynasty, National Library Edition: Rama III King Phranangklao [and] Rama IV King Mongkut] (Bangkok, 1963), pp. 327–8; the missionaries’ account is in a letter dated 9 Sept. 1840, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi (henceforth APF), XXII (1850), pp. 151–2 (Gallica). The MEP's November 1855 letter to the MAE is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 36–7. A historical overview of issues with Catholic missions is in Winichakul, T., ‘Buddhist apologetics and a genealogy of comparative religion in Siam’, Numen 62 (2015), pp. 75–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 90–105 has a copy of the treaty as well as Montigny's explanations of specific articles to his superiors in Paris. The French treaty included a limitation on the Siamese government's right to ban the export of rice in times of shortage, and Montigny claimed this as his personal achievement (p. 102), but in fact Parkes had already wrung this concession from the Siamese before the final ratification of the Bowring treaty (Tarling, ‘Mission’, pp. 102, 111).
12 The quoted November 1856 letter is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 79; a September 1856 letter refers to his conversation with a Siamese minister (p. 104).
13 See ibid., pp. 72–4 for the correspondence with Pallegoix; the meeting with Mongkut is in Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 233–4, and the draft letter on p. 237. Montigny's initial complaint to Paris, dated 19 June 1856, is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 75–6; a harsher letter from November is on p. 104.
14 On the letter and gifts, see Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 359. Montigny's reference to a “small issue” is in his March 1856 letter: Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 67. No scholar has found any written document spelling out Montigny's instructions for Cambodia, which were perhaps conveyed to him orally in Paris; P. Lamant, ‘Les prémices des relations politiques entre le Cambodge et la France vers le milieu du XIXe siècle’, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 72 (1985), p. 175 (downloaded from www.persee.fr)
15 Miche's letter of 16 June 1856, quoted in Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 357. Lamant, ‘Prémices’, mentions Miche's initiatives dating back to 1848 (p. 169). Unlike Siam, Cambodia had no Protestant missionaries.
16 Letter by Father Laffitte, 24 December 1855, APF, XXVIII (1856), p. 359. There is no indication of what became of these boys.
17 The translated letter, dated 12 February 1856, is in Thai National Archives (henceforth TNA), Fourth Reign, 1217/2. The Cambodians are said to have gone through the missionaries to contact the French Consul in Singapore to request both arms and training in their use.
18 These events are summarised in Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 381–91; Montigny's own account is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 119–20. Note that Montigny had already received criticism from Paris for delays in his mission (Lamant, ‘Prémices’, p. 176).
19 Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 399; for the draft treat, see pp. 403–9. Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 121–2.
20 The cession of the island is in an Appendix to the draft treaty, in Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 406–9. This Appendix seems to have been removed from the copy of the document filed in the French archives, based on the version reproduced in Lamant, ‘Prémices’, pp. 192–4. Montigny's account of his conversations in Bangkok is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 122–4. His refusal of the island is in his 17 October 1856 letter to Ang Duang, in Meyniard, Second Empire pp. 410–11.
21 Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 409. Montigny's knowledge of local geography is questionable: the only river which has the expanse he describes is obviously the Mekong, but Phú Quốc is a considerable distance away from its mouth.
22 Montigny's instructions are summarised in ibid., pp. 416–18.
23 An account of the missionaries’ audience with Ang Duang is in ibid., pp. 420–2.
24 Text of letter in ibid., p. 428; see also Snidvongs, ‘Development’, pp. 517–19, based on Ang Duang's 3 January 1857 letter from the Thai archives.
25 Letter to René de Courcy dated 18 November 1856, from the latter's unpublished memoirs, quoted in Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 493.
26 These observations are based on a close reading of the Vietnamese chronicle Đại Nam Thực Lục [True Records of Đại Nam, henceforth ĐNTL] (Hà Nội, 2002–7) for the period 1841–56. I hope to explore Vietnamese perceptions more thoroughly in a future article.
27 J. Ramsay, ‘Exploitation and extortion in the Nguyễn campaign against Catholicism in the 1830s-1840s’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies XXXV, 2 (2004), pp. 316–18. Ramsay argues persuasively that Marchand's personal correspondence suggests he was neither physically healthy nor emotionally stable enough to have taken any deliberate part in the rebellion.
28 Delvaux, R. P., ‘L'ambassade de Minh-Mang à Louis-Philippe 1839 à 1841’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué XV, 4 (1928), pp. 257–64Google Scholar; Delvaux suggests as well that the Vietnamese visitors did not conform to French diplomatic protocol.
29 ĐNTL, tập 7 (quyển II), p. 67. Although this was a commentary by later editors, it is inserted in reference to a specific incident involving European ships to explain the Court's thinking at that point in time.
30 G. Taboulet, La geste française en Indochine: Histoire par les textes, vol. 1 (Paris, 1955), pp. 342–7 has details on these incidents.
31 Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 55–6, quoting MAE letter of 21 December 1855.
32 Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 137; Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 59–60.
33 Letter dated 19 March 1856, in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 67–8.
34 Cordier, H., ‘La France et la Cochinchine, 1852–1858: La mission du Catinat à Tourane (1856)’, T'oung Pao VII, 4 (1906), pp. 481–514Google Scholar.
35 Le Lieur's account, dated 1 October 1856, in ibid., pp. 497–505. The letter, addressing a non-existent Prime Minister of Vietnam, is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 115–6.
36 Cordier, ‘La France’, pp. 497–505.
37 The issue is mentioned in the report by Captain Collier, 9 November 1856, ibid., p. 508.
38 Ibid., pp 505–10 (quotation from p. 508). Correspondence between Collier and the Quảng Nam Tổng đốc (governor) is on pp. 510–14.
39 Montigny's report to Paris, 14 March 1857, in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 150.
40 The letters exchanged in January 1857 are in ibid., pp. 152–7; the quotation is from the report cited in the previous footnote.
41 Ibid., p. 154.
42 Ibid., p. 159.
43 The draft treaty is in ibid., pp. 162–9. For Montigny's explanation, see his 19 March 1857 letter to MAE, p. 173. Such a provision, of course, would have done little or nothing for Vietnamese Catholics.
44 See R. Edwards, ‘The old Canton system of foreign trade’, in Law and Politics in China's Foreign Trade, (ed.) Victor Li (Seattle, 1977), pp. 360–79.
45 The letter dated 6 February 1857, is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 170; Montigny's summary of his remarks to the Vietnamese is on pp. 160–1.
46 Lamant, ‘Prémices’, p. 174.
47 Ibid. Lamant suggests that Montigny spent most of this first visit to China collecting information for a businessman's guide to Shanghai which he published the following year.
48 Quoted in Taboulet, Geste français, p. 397. The last phrase (moyens d'action) would seem to refer to the possibility of foreign powers exercising pressure on the government concerned. Montigny's first posting in Shanghai is chronicled in C. Maybon and J. Fredet, Histoire de la Concession Française de Shanghaï (Paris, 1929), pp. 13–59 (Gallica).
49 P. Duke, Les relations entre la France et la Thaïlande (Siam) au XIXe siècle d'après les archives des Affaires Étrangères (Bangkok, 1962), p. 13, quoting Miche's 21 March 1857 letter to his MEP superiors in Paris. Miche went on to remark that ‘although completely devoted to missionaries and the interests of [the Catholic] religion, with his annoying character [Montigny] messes up everything and turns everyone against him’. Cordier, who is fully supportive of Montigny's objectives on his mission, makes a similar characterisation (Politique coloniale, pp. 34–5).
50 Mongkut's undated letter to Ang Duang is in Phraratchahatthalekha Phrabat Somdet Phračhomklao Čhaoyuhua [Letters of King Mongkut] (Bangkok, 1977), p. 66.
51 See, for example, the comment by Meyniard, Second Empire (p. 152), whose account relied heavily on Montigny's own writings and undoubtedly reflected his views. There is an excellent discussion of such perceptions in A. Turton, ‘Disappointing gifts: Dialectics of gift exchange in early modern European-East Asian diplomatic practice’, Journal of the Siam Society CIV (2016), pp. 111–27.
52 Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 102. Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 464–5, mentions the reliance on Anglo-Saxons for document translation.
53 Mongkut, while still a prince in the monkhood, had done Pallegoix the honour of attending his consecration as Bishop (APF, XI [1839], p. 547).
54 I am referring here to Meyniard, who as noted above, relied heavily on Montigny's personal papers, although it is not always clear when he is citing the diplomat and when he is expressing his personal views. Given his repeated references to alleged Siamese fear and dislike of the British, it is difficult not to infer that these were Montigny's sentiments as well. This was a well-worn theme that the French had also been repeating in their dealings with Vietnam for half a century.
55 Montigny's 22 September 1856 letter to MAE, quoted in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 79. The comment on throwing themselves into French arms is from Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 241.
56 Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 104. Writing to his minister in May 1857, Montigny evoked a vision of an eventual French protectorate extending throughout mainland Southeast Asia (quoted in Duke, Relations, pp. 13–14).
57 Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 167–8. This was allegedly the conclusion of a meeting of high-ranking officials, as explained to Montigny. According to Meyniard (p. 313), the Siamese demonstrated so much favouritism to him over the Anglo-Saxon diplomats that it was an “embarrassment”.
58 Montigny letter to Paris, 20 November 1856, in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 105; T. Harris, The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris, First American Consul General and Minister to Japan, (ed.) Mario Cosenza (Garden City, NY, 1930), pp. 111–12, 121, 148.
59 This is notably true of Taboulet and Lamant. Duke, who does not use any Thai sources for Montigny's mission, accepts the French version, as does Khin Sok, Le Cambodge entre le Siam et le Viêtnam de 1775 à 1860 (Paris, 1991), who narrates the entire episode based on Meyniard and missionary correspondence. Only Neon Snidvongs, who uses both French and Thai archival documents, reaches a different conclusion, and her interpretation parallels my own (Snidvongs, ‘Development’.).
60 Colonial scholars somewhat unfairly criticised Montigny for being ‘naïve’ in informing Mongkut of his planned visit to Cambodia; see Taboulet, Geste français, p. 388 and Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 113.
61 These letters are reproduced in Meyniard, Second Empire, pp. 448–55 and 465–72.
62 TNA, 1216/48, 1216/49.
63 Phraratchahattalekha, pp. 63–7. No date is given for the letter but it seems to have been written around the time of Montigny's departure from Bangkok.
64 See the discussion in Snidvongs, ‘Development’, pp. 508–13, citing correspondence from late 1856 and early 1857. The tone of this correspondence differs dramatically from the letters Mongkut sent to Norodom a few years later when the French were aggressively pursuing a protectorate in Cambodia explicitly intended to supplant Siamese overlordship; see, for example, Phraratchahatthalekha, pp. 105–17 and 124–7.
65 Snidvongs, ‘Development’, pp. 517–9. Neon suggests—quite correctly, to my mind—that the French “preferred to read into this natural resentment [on the part of the Cambodians] another act put on for the benefit of the Siamese” (p. 519).
66 Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 461, apparently quoting Miche's own account of the conversation.
67 This is the interpretation of ibid., who refers to Ang Duang's alleged “separatist” ambitions (p. 86). As with the Siamese, the same author suggests (p. 377) that the Cambodian ruler also wished to “throw himself into French arms”.
68 His close relationship and reliance on Mongkut is clearly reflected in their correspondence; see Phraratchahatthalekha, pp. 63–7, where Mongkut refers to him as a “true Thai” (Thai thae); and Thai sataban kasat Khmaen [Thai enthronement of Khmer kings] (Bangkok, 1962), pp. 32–49.
69 His dependence on Siamese support is clear in his exchanges with Mongkut regarding the Vietnamese threat; see, for example, TNA, 1217/9 and 1218/39.
70 Meyniard, Second Empire, p. 428.
71 Ibid., pp. 428 (Montigny) and 429–32 (Napoleon); both letters are dated 25 November 1856. The lost territory is also mentioned in an 1855 letter from Ang Duang to Mongkut (TNA, 1217/9). An important 1928 Cambodian chronicle describes the King as anxious to build ties with the French in order to get back the lost provinces, if necessary by fighting alongside them against the Vietnamese; Eng Sut, Ekkasar mohaborous Khmae [Documents of Khmer heroes] (Phnom Penh, 1969), pp. 1087–8. Theara Thun (personal communication) confirms that irredentism is mentioned by most contemporary texts as the driving force behind Oudong's initiatives to France.
72 C. P. Thiphakorawong [Kham Bunnag], Phratchaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin Ratchakan thi 4 chabap Čhao Phraya Thiphakorawong (Kham Bunnak) [Royal Chronicles of the Bangkok Dynasty, Fourth Reign, version (written by) Čhao Phraya Thiphakorawong (Kham Bunnag)] (Bangkok, 2004), pp. 142–6. The other peculiarity of the Thai translation, which I cannot explain, is that the pronouns it uses for ‘I’ and ‘you’ in Ang Duang's letter are so intimate as to be rude; it seems impossible that the Khmer text would have done so.
73 Mongkut spoke warmly of Miche to Ang Duang but noted that their conversations were held through an interpreter because they had no common language (Phraratchahatthalekha, p. 66).
74 Lamant, ‘Prémices’, p. 175, quoting Montigny's 8 May 1857 letter to his Minister in Paris.
75 Ministry of Education of Cambodia, Bangsavatar nai Prades Kampuchea [Chronicle of Cambodia] (Phnom Penh, 1952), pp. 88–9. Theara Thun (personal communication) confirms that the earlier chronicles do not mention the mission. Even the textbook devotes a paragraph and a half to correspondence with Mongkut about Montigny's impending visit but only one sentence to the event itself.
76 The officials appear to have been equally suspicious of the Vietnamese soldiers (former Siamese war captives) whom Montigny had brought from Bangkok to help with interpretation. Their account of these events, written after their return to Siam, mentions several queries by the mandarins as to who they were and what they were doing on a French ship (TNA, 1218/131).
77 ĐNTL, tập 7 (quyển XV), pp. 465–7, 470, 485.
78 Queen Sirikit (1932-) also lived on the Continent during her youth when her father was Siamese Minister in Paris.
79 These events are discussed in more detail in B. Lockhart, ‘Suzerainty versus sovereignty: Establishing French empire in Indochina’, in Empire in Asia: A New Global History, vol. 2, (eds.) Donna Brunero and Brian Farrell (London, 2018), pp. 107–36.
80 See T. Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation (Honolulu, 1997).
81 Good studies of these events include P. Tuck, The French Wolf and the Siamese Lamb: The French Threat to Siamese Independence, 1858–1907 (Bangkok, 1993); J. Chandran, The Contest for Siam, 1889–1902: A Diplomatic Rivalry (Kuala Lumpur, 1977); and K. Suwannathat-Pian, Thai-Malay Relations: Traditional Intra-regional Relations from the Seventeenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries (Singapore, 1988).
82 The lead French diplomat in Beijing, Alphonse de Bourboulon, sent Paris an extended criticism of Montigny's failed mission, making precisely this argument. His 1 September 1857 letter is in Cordier, Politique coloniale, pp. 177–93.
83 This observation is based on a reading of the Đại Nam Thực Lục during Tự Đức's reign. The previous gunboat incidents at Tourane had pushed the Vietnamese to upgrade their coastal defences.
84 Montigny to MAE, 14 March 1857, in Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 171. A letter written a few days later (19 March) has a more detailed discussion of the reasons why his own mission was not accomplished (pp. 171–2).
85 APF, XXX (1858), p. 229; Retord's report on the events of 1857 is on pp. 225–31.
86 APF for the period 1843–56 contains numerous examples of such interrogations from the testimonies of missionaries and converts.
87 See Vo Duc Hanh, La place du Catholicisme dans les relations entre la France et le Viet Nam de 1851 à 1870, vol. 3 (Leiden, 1969). One authoritative colonial source argued that the main reason for the decision to invade was “the insult brought against our flag and our plenipotentiary in the Bay of Tourane”; Silvestre, J., ‘Politique française dans l'Indo-Chine: Annam (IV)’, Annales de l’École Libre des Sciences Politiques XI, 1 (1896), p. 50Google Scholar.
88 S. Belmessous, ‘The paradox of an empire by treaty’, in Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600–1900, (ed.) S. Belmessous (Oxford, 2014), p. 12; the “fetishism” remark is from M. van Ittersum, ‘Global constitutionalism in the early modern period’, in Handbook on Global Constitutionalism, (eds.) A. Lang, Jr. and A. Wiener (Northampton, 2017), p. 47.
89 See the studies in Belmessous (ed.), Empire by Treaty and S. Belmessous, Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500–1920 (Oxford, 2011).
90 See D. van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, 1500–1700 (Chiang Mai, 2002); an excellent overview for the region is found in P. Borschberg, ‘Treaties in Asia’, in Handbuch Frieden in Europa der Frühen Neuzeit/Handbook of Peace in Early Modern Europȩ (eds.) I. Dingel et al. (Boston, 2020); I thank Prof. Borschberg for providing me with a copy of his chapter. The seminal work by C. Alexandrowicz, Introduction to the History of Law of Nations in the East Indies (Oxford, 1967) remains an important study.
91 See, for example, G. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (Oxford, 1984), pp. 210–13. Gong's comment (p. 210) that the Bowring treaty “closely resembled” the treaties imposed on China and Japan is exaggerated.
92 Mongkut's 1857 letter to Siamese diplomats overseas, Phraratchahatthalekha, pp. 546–7. It is clear that he was irritated but not intimidated. Hillier avoided provoking a serious crisis in Anglo-Siamese relations by dying of cholera shortly after his arrival; other annoying foreign diplomats were less obliging.
93 Cordier, Politique coloniale, p. 124. Some scholars argue that by the mid-nineteenth century the gradual rapprochement which eventually became the Entente Cordiale meant that global Anglo-French rivalry had become less meaningful; see, for example, Todd, D., ‘Transnational projects of empire in France, c. 1815–c. 1870’, Modern Intellectual History XII, 2 (2015), pp. 265–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and A. Watson, ‘European international society and its expansion’, in The Expansion of International Society, (eds.) H. Bull and A. Watson (Oxford, 1984), pp. 13–32. This argument holds true for parts of the world, but not for mainland Southeast Asia, where competition between the two powers remained a potent force through to the end of the century.
94 See, for example, an undated letter (apparently written in 1852) from Mongkut to one of his brothers (Phraratchahatthalekha, p. 55) where he is critical of Burmese King Mindon (r. 1853-78) for failing to realise that European merchants operating in his country had powerful governments behind them. The Siamese deliberately adopted a deferential and even self-abasing tone in dealing with Western rulers, in stark contrast with the perceived ‘arrogance’ of Chinese and Vietnamese emperors. His correspondence with Queen Victoria, Napoleon III and American Presidents clearly demonstrates this approach; such letters can be found in S. Pramoj and K. Pramoj, The King of Siam Speaks (Bangkok, 1987).
95 Mongkut's 1857 letter to Siamese diplomats, Phraratchahatthalekha, p. 569.
96 M. Fisher, ‘Diplomacy in India, 1526-1858’, in Britain's Oceanic Empire: Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550—1850, (eds.) H. Bowen, E. Mancke and J. Reid (Cambridge, 2012), p. 249. Fisher's chapter provides an excellent overview of the Indian context. For Southeast Asia, see Borschberg, ‘Treaties’ and Koster, G., ‘Of treaties and unbelievers: Images of the Dutch in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century Malay historiography’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society LXXVIII, 1 (2005), pp. 59–96Google Scholar.