Among the leaders of these robber-bands was a shrewd and valiant Chinaman bearing the name of Pin Tat. This man, at the time thirty-three years of age and of unbounded ambition, rose by a series of military and civil promotions to the very highest influence. What his sword could not achieve in battle his _finesse_ and bribery completed. Betraying the high trusts reposed in him, and gathering to his standard all available robbers and pirates, he was enabled to dictate terms to the government until he gained possession of all the northern districts. He then marched with a large force against the Burmese governor of Bangkok, whom he surprised and put to death, availing himself of his treasures as his “sinews of war.” He was now strong enough to overcome the Burmese at every point; and so thoroughly did he succeed in ridding the country from their thraldom that he won the gratitude of the people, who gladly favored his assumption of royal authority. He displayed great genius in the administration of affairs, colonized and rebuilt the devastated districts of the country, and, profiting by a sanguinary war between China and Burmah, conquered new territory on the north. It was during his reign that the Siamese power was extended far down the Malay Peninsula, whose governor he captured, and finally, through a matrimonial alliance with his daughter, placed him in power as a tributary. This remarkable Chinaman, after a reign of fifteen years under the title of Phya-Jak, sank into a state of melancholy, and was assassinated in 1782. In the early part of the present century the English endeavored to negotiate a treaty with Siam, but with little success, and it was not until 1826 that negotiations in that direction were crowned with success. It was soon after that the first Protestant missions were established. We find Dr. Gutslaf in Bangkok in 1828, where he finished the translation of the New Testament into Siamese. In 1830 he revisited Siam, and translated a part of the Scriptures into the languages of Cambodia and the Laos. The American Baptists founded their mission to the Chinese in Siam soon after. The Presbyterian mission was founded in 1840, and that of the American Board (since discontinued) in 1850.