History has not given us the name of the King who reigned in 1550 A.D., although the chief events of his reign have been chronicled. It was in this reign that the Kingdom of Siam was laid waste by the incursions of several neighbouring nations who carried fire and sword throughout the towns and the country side. Thirty thousand innocent victims were sacrificed to their ruthless vengeance, and this swarm of warriors seemed to prefer to lay waste the crops and to destroy the towns rather than to conquer and govern them. The King of Siam, alarmed at their progress, arose at the murmurings of his people. He raised a large army. All those capable of bearing arms were summoned to the flag and those who were so cowardly as to excuse themselves from fighting for their country, were threatened with the punishment of being burnt alive. Foreigners were bound by this law. At that time there were 130 Portuguese in the Kingdom, of whom 120 were obliged to take up arms. The King believed himself to be invincible, when he saw this handful of Europeans whom he regarded as so many heroes at his disposal. A powerful army of 400,000 men including 70,000 non Siamese took the field with the King at the head. The army was further reinforced on the way by 100,000 men and 4000 elephants. We must regard these numbers as a gross exaggeration. It is true that the temperate nature of Eastern races renders the question of the food-supply an easy matter for the largest armies; but how could so great an army have been collected together in a country which boasts but few inhabitants. However we will set forth the facts as they have been handed down to us, and we can only question them by the light of their probability.