Of the many mercantile adventures that marked European exploitations of Asia, one of the most entertaining is that of the French in Siam. This is a well-known story that has been told by many historians, among them Maurice Collis, E.W. Hutchinson and Michael Smithies himself. All have chronicled this classic failure, which began with the seeking of converts and trade and ended with troops, occupation and abject withdrawal.
In this, his most recent book, Smithies has discovered an intriguing new angle from which to view the carnage: the viewpoint of a sober-sided merchant, Francois Martin, in Pondicherry, India. Though he stayed on his own side of the Bay of Bengal and never went to Siam, Martin was the head of the French trading post there and thus privy to all the correspondence that passed through. In addition he kept a diary, in which he recorded and pondered over what information he got.
These diaries, nearly 2,000 pages of them, languished in various places until they were finally published between 1931 and 1934. It is this edition that Smithies has used as the source for his own book.