With the last week of the year 1849 the Rev. Asa Hemenway, the sole remaining missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., after just ten years of faithful service on mission-ground, embarked with his family for the United States, and the operations of that Board in Siam closed. For fifteen years its missionaries had cultivated this interesting and inviting, but as to visible results most barren, field. From none of the native races of the land had they gathered one reliable convert. Their missionaries had labored, and labored well, but others were to enter into their labor. The “set time” for Siam’s visitation had not yet come. It would seem that “he that letteth must let, till he be taken out of the way” of this man-fearing people before gospel truth could have “free course, run and be glorified.” The books that they prepared, translated and distributed, the favor won by their gratuitous healing of the sick, and the introduction, first, of inoculation and afterward of vaccination for the small-pox, the training given in habits of industry and order and in knowledge of the Christian Scriptures to those employed by them in their printing-office and in their families, were not lost, nor the high opinion the natives learned to entertain of the truthfulness, benevolence and goodness of American Christian men derived from them and their worthy Baptist associates. And we must not forget how largely the career of progress on which Siam has since entered is traceable to the influence of one member of this mission. In the spring of 1850 the Rev. Dr. Bradley, who had, while in the United States, transferred his relations to the American Missionary Association, returned with Mrs. Sarah B. Bradley and his children, and with him came as associates the Rev. L. B. Lane, M. D., and Prof. J. Silsby. To the A. M. A. had been made over the dwelling-houses, chapel, printing-press, etc. of the A. B. C. F. M.; the ground on which they stood had been only leased. It was now imperatively necessary that the Presbyterian mission should have a home of its own, but all attempts to procure one failed. The knowledge of the unwillingness of the government to give foreigners any foothold upon the soil deterred the owners of suitable locations from selling to the missionaries. And when at last one, braver than the rest, was found willing to part with land enough for a station in the upper part of the city, and permission to purchase obtained from the proper official, and the money had been paid over, and one of the missionaries with his family had removed in a floating house to the spot to commence building, a peremptory order from one of the highest grandees revoked the permission given, and compelled the return of the mission family and the payment back of the purchase-money by the seller. No other reason was given than that “the residence of foreigners there was contrary to the custom of the country.” Nor could any eligible site be rented even.